Reviews

A Jewish woman forced into prostitution during the time of World War II recognizes a former Nazi functionary as the man running for mayor in the west German town she is living in. Haunted by her past and the death of her parents, caused by this man, and the ignorance of the judiciary and even her husband, who rather want to forget about the past and concentrate on the future (Wirtschaftswunder era), she eventually decides to kill him and accept the penalty.

Beautifully photographed, this intense movie succeeds greatly in describing the agony of a woman facing a society which has already suppressed a past which she just cannot let rest. Thankfully, socialist propaganda is not very eminent in this movie, leaving it as a small, almost forgotten example of how east German filmmakers were dealing with the Nazi era. You are not going to find a movie about the topic like this from West Germany for almost a decade after this movie was made. See it if you can track it down.

In this fascinating interview, east German film makers Heynowski and Scheumann try to reveal the true face of western imperialism in Africa, and the result is a propagandistic tour de force: Siegfried Mueller, ex-officer of the Wehrmacht, in the uniform of the Kongolese Army and adorned with the Cross of Iron awarded in 1945, talks about his involvement as a mercenary in Kongo's civil war in the 1960s. In the course of the film the bottle of Pernod is emptied, and the Major gets more revealing; practically denying his earlier statements about civil killings, the ethics of war and the defense of western libertarian values. Masterfully caricatured with pictures of him and comrades proudly posing with severed skulls, other Nazi officers now active in Afrika and incidental mentioning of American exertion of influence. The tag line reads "Confessions of a Murderer", and the directors skillfully talk the increasingly drunk Kongo-Mueller into his role and into the the wanted statements. I was deeply impressed by this movie, which gives unique insight into a neglected chapter of the cold war and its zeitgeist, and also its sheer suggestive power, which creates a ghastly image of this smiling murderer. This film was banned in West Germany for many years. Highly recommended, even though extremely hard to find.