Tuesday, February 6, 2018

'Paradise' DVD: Artistically Putting Human Faces on the Holocaust


Film Movement particularly uses its power of selecting the best indie films from virtually every country for good regarding two February 13, 2018 releases. The (reviewed) documentary "Line 41" focuses on a Holocaust survivor revisiting the prison-camp like Jewish ghetto where he spent the war 70 years later; the 2016 Russian drama "Paradise" that is the focus for today provides an equally human but broader perspective regarding that genocide. "Paradise" having a strong live-stage vibe is one of many indications of the perfection of this film.

Movement shows equally good instincts regarding its following trailer for "Paradise." The chosen clips for this promo. expertly convey the themes and the style of the film.


The 16 festival wins and additional 14 nominations speak volumes regarding the the quality of "Paradise." These honors include "Best Feature" at the 2016 Chicago International Film Festival and inclusion in the "Top 10 of the Year" at the 2018 CinEuphoria Awards.

Although fictional, the highly stylized black-and-white "Paradise" has a docudrama feel in that much of the film consists of three main characters separately sitting at a table and recounting the incidents that play out during the film.

The film centers around stunning blonde Olga, who is a Russian countess working with the French Resistance. She and a friend are arrested for harboring Jewish children. This incarceration initially leads to Olga being jailed and undergoing interrogation by French collaborator Jules. The interviews and the depictions of the events provide a good sense of the characters that includes an extended look at the family life of Jules.

The interrogation scenes from this portion of the film are tense but not unduly dramatic. The dialogue rings true, and adding a perverse element of "Basic Instinct" has the intended effect on both the audience and Jules. All this further helps establish Olga as a tough pragmatist who refuses to give the Nazis the satisfaction of seeing her break down.

The third member of this group is the most interesting in that he is a SS officer who is not portrayed in an exceptionally negative light. Helmut is a handsome intelligent aristocrat who literally can be a poster child for the Aryan ideal that the Third Reich promotes.

The explanation of Helmut for joining Team Hitler early on makes sense and is in line with the bill-of-goods that that persuasive leader sells a desperate nation. The reasoning behind the antisemitism of Helmut is more flawed, but he tries to make it seem reasonable.

These views also reflect the initial ignorance of the German people regarding the extremeness of the views of Hitler. Helmut additionally illustrates the scope of the appeal of Hitler during his rise to power. In other words, the duped individuals are more than "sons of butchers and pharmacists."

The perspective of Helmut further gives the film its name; he and his fellow Germans truly believe that Hitler is going to make their country a Utopia.

The concentration camp scenes largely continue the neutral and human perspective of "Paradise." Helmut is a high-ranking camp official with a reputation as a rat with rigid standards. This does not endear him to the camp commandant, who justifies the corruption by officers as the value of their service to the Third Reich more than offsetting the loss from their theft and other abuse of power.

A particularly chilling scene has the commandant bragging about his ability to overcome production problems in terms of killing 10,000 prisoners a day and in fitting far more of them in barracks then those buildings are designed to accommodate. He sounds like a plant manager discussing the struggles of meeting a requirement that he manufacture a challenging number of plastic cups each day. This exchange partially illustrates the stresses on camp commandants and paints them in a different light than as monsters who gleefully murder millions of innocent people.

Olga working in a camp warehouse where prisoners sort (and steal) huge piles of possessions of prisoners adds a couple of additional perspectives to "Paradise." It provides a disturbing visual of the scale of the number of people brought to the camps and shows that the prisoners have their dark sides. One scene that discusses a method for finding hidden objects is particularly disturbing.

This assignment reunites Olga with Helmut 10 years after a largely one-sided love affair while they are enjoying what seems to be actual paradise in beautiful Italy; this leads to Helmut using his current position to better the existence of Olga without his being brutally oppressive with her.

All of this concludes with the story of Helmut and Olga ending on a realistic note and director Andrey Konchalovsky concluding the film on an aptly ambiguous note that validates the theory of many of us regarding the nature of the judgment that the characters face.

The big picture regarding all this is that Konchalovsky perfectly conveys the concept of most European feeling as if they are living a nightmare; the scary part of this is that it shows particularly regarding Helmut that Hitler is the devil in that he makes a believable case that he can create a heaven on earth all the time knowing that delivering his warped version of paradise will first require putting those who put him in power  (and literally prove to be good soldiers despite horrific conditions) and the millions of people who constitute collateral damage through Hell.

Film Movement shines just as brightly regarding its tradition of pairing a short film with the main release of the month. The aptly titled 2013 German drama "Red Snow" uses the contrast between the titular precipitation and several other white objects and blood just as effectively as Konchalovsky uses black-and-white to convey his message.

"Snow" is set in 1941 and focuses on the German occupation of Serbia; much of the power of this film relates to director-writer Luka Popadic basing it on actual events.

The macro concept this time is the Nazi policy of executing 100 Serbian civilians for every German soldier who is killed. This "law" becomes relevant when a grunt is shot while he and his members of his unit let their guard down in a field.

The commander of the leader of the killed soldier offers that lieutenant the deal that there will not be a mass execution if that officer can get the shepherd who witnesses the killing of the soldier to divulge the location of a group of resistance fighters.

The lieutenant getting blood on the bright white t-shirt of the shepherd is one of the aforementioned examples of the contrast described above. Popadic takes things further in having other dark-colored substances stain the underwear of the suspected resistance fighter.

Like Konchalovsky, Popadic humanizes all of his characters to help make his point. We learn that, but for the war, the Serbian would have studied electrical engineering in Vienna. We further can picture him and his torturer being friends in that city under other circumstances.

One spoiler is that Popadic ends "Red" on a depressingly cynical note; everyone ends up far worse at the end of the film than they are at its beginning. The most macro message regarding that is that any occupation is very rough on both the occupied and the occupiers.

Anyone with questions or comments regarding either "Paradise" or "Red" is strongly encouraged either to email me or to connect on Twitter via @tvdvdguy.









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