"Luis Trenker-Der Schmale Grat der Wahrheit" is a German small screen movie from November 2015, so this one is already slightly over a year old. It only runs for under 90 minutes, which is a runtime that may not be enough to really elaborate convincingly on the character of Luis Trenker. But they did the most of what they had to work with. Murnberger proves (just like with his Hader films) that he is among the best Austria has to offer right now and Probst proves that experience results into quality. For the people who may not know Trenker, let me say that he was somehow the male equivalent to Leni Riefenstahl back in the years of Nazi Germany. And at the same time, he was not. Today he is one of the most remembered filmmakers from back then in terms of German-speaking areas. And just like with the much more famous Riefenstahl, his works always included also aesthetic and artistic components that went way beyond the idea of propaganda that you probably could not stay away from back then as a filmmaker. Still, his works probably had less of a political message than Riefenstahl's most famous did.
The title character is played by Tobias Moretti, who is doing really great right now and I quite like him too. We find out about his complicated relationship with Riefenstahl, about the films he made, about his discussions with Nazis and how he tried to collaborate with them, yet never sacrifice his artistic integrity in the process which becomes increasingly difficult when the Nazi Party takes a closer look at his relationship with non-German countries and also his approach to the final solution of Jewery. Very fittingly, Trenker also become almost as old as Riefenstahl before he died. Anyway, I think this was an interesting little movie. They may have added fictitious elements at times, for example involving Riefenstahl's arrest, but that's perfectly fine as these worked out nicely too. And lets be honest with the action taking place so long back then, it's pretty much impossible to watch a film like this without fiction at all. And then it would be a documentary. I believe everybody working on this project did a good job and it shows that, even if it may not be in the quantity of the United States, there are also many small screen releases from Germany that are worth seeing. And it also shows that it is still possible to find subjects that bring something new to the screen, even when it comes to making movies about Nazi Germany where already hundreds, if not thousands of films exist. I think you should check it out if you are interested in that historic era. Very much worth seeing.
The title character is played by Tobias Moretti, who is doing really great right now and I quite like him too. We find out about his complicated relationship with Riefenstahl, about the films he made, about his discussions with Nazis and how he tried to collaborate with them, yet never sacrifice his artistic integrity in the process which becomes increasingly difficult when the Nazi Party takes a closer look at his relationship with non-German countries and also his approach to the final solution of Jewery. Very fittingly, Trenker also become almost as old as Riefenstahl before he died. Anyway, I think this was an interesting little movie. They may have added fictitious elements at times, for example involving Riefenstahl's arrest, but that's perfectly fine as these worked out nicely too. And lets be honest with the action taking place so long back then, it's pretty much impossible to watch a film like this without fiction at all. And then it would be a documentary. I believe everybody working on this project did a good job and it shows that, even if it may not be in the quantity of the United States, there are also many small screen releases from Germany that are worth seeing. And it also shows that it is still possible to find subjects that bring something new to the screen, even when it comes to making movies about Nazi Germany where already hundreds, if not thousands of films exist. I think you should check it out if you are interested in that historic era. Very much worth seeing.
