Conspiracy
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Movie Reviews of Conspiracy
Movie Review: "We have accomplished something."
Summary: 5 Stars
"Dead men don't hump, Dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most effective form of sterilization."
This movie shows the cumulation of Hermann Goering's infamous "War Quote." Goering asked Gustave Gilbert in the Nuremburg War Trials this: "Why would some slob on a farm want to risk his life in war when all he will hope to get out of it is to come home in one piece if he survives." Goering reiterates the point to Gilbert that it is the LEADERS of a nation who guide the people into a war, whether in a democracy or a facaist state.
Conspiracy is a movie that portrays the leaders of the Nazi State planning and putting into operation the Holocaust (Shoah) that Hitler, Himmler and Goering so carefully planned and demanded. It is the factual portrayal of the infamous "Wansee Conference" where death and murder are shrouded in such words as "Relocation and Elimination." What was so incredible is that the conference was like a Family Reunion for the Nazi brass, including cigars, exquisite food and brotherly comeraderie.
In my opinion, Stanley Tucci should have played Heydrich, because he looks more like Heydrich than does Kenneth Branach. Yet the performance of Branach is perfect. Some may have felt that Branach may have "humanized" the monster Heydrich by portraying him as so suave and debonaire. Yet those who have studied the Nazi's tell of a Heydrich as leader of occupied Czechoslovakia as a man with a carrot on a stick in one hand and a knife in the other hand. This quality of Heydrich is perfectly reinacted by Branach. Cool, pragmatic, yet with a heart of stone and the eyes of a snake. And ALWAYS interested primarily on his position and how to enrich it and finding ways and means of skimming more power for himself.
Tucci plays an excellent Eichmann, plotting with a bureaurocrat's precision on how to manipulate Eichmanns plan by rerouting railroad timetables to produce the desired result: "relocating" the European jewish population to the planned "old age camps" in Poland to eliminate the "Jewish sphere of influence."
It didnt matter that factual and ghastly details of those "camps" were openly and candidly discussed among cigatette smoke and the spectacle of that fat "Kloffner"-the mouthpiece of Martin Boorman-stuffing his mouth with food all the time and disgustingly always exusing himself to the "little boy's room."
In this age of "Preemptive, preventative wars" plotted by American leadership, it gives one reason to ponder Goering's quote, and the crisp businesslike approach of killing . And it leaves one to wonder how many of Today's ghastly headlines are birthed and nurtured in such rich comfortable surroundings, with the food, wine and cigars shown in this film!
"We have accomplished something!"- Reinhard Tristin Eugen Heydrich
Movie Review: Rationalizing Genocide
Summary: 5 Stars
"Conspiracy" is a brilliant reenactment of the fateful meeting that implemented the logistics of NAZI genocide. The film shows how easily an idea as horrific as one of mass murder can be politely discussed by a committee having a nice lunch on a quiet day.
The peaceful surroundings of the chateau where members of the NAZI apparatus met parallels the ease with which most of the individuals contemplate the mass homicide. Most members seemed disturbed not at all with the concept, but simply the logistics of its implementation: firing squads vs. gas? If gas, what kind? Carbon monoxide or cyanide; Xyclon-B perhaps? How large should the facilities be? How many undesirables can they "evacuate" per day? How to dispose of the bodies? Should they be used for work?
Kenneth Branagh plays SS Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich convincingly; showing his cool resolve and functional outlook in carrying out the will of a madman. Colin Firth shows more the hippocricy of party members who esoterically intellectualized the advacement of racial hatred with moral gusto but soon found their morality at odds with the all too obvious political ramifications of what they preached. Stanley Tucci also renders an exquisite performance of Adolf Eichmann, Heydrich's devoted disciple and ultimate successor in implementing The Final Solution.
The movie is as concise and to the point as Reinhard Heydrich's sinister oversight of the committee's progress. Staying on track and keeping the listner focused on the morbid task at hand, the audience is mesmerized by the bureaucratic dryness of the proceedings until its chilling end. There's obviously some poetic license as to the dialogue of the characters outside of the meeting minutes, but it's believable in every way.
A great film that everyone must see so as to be warned about human nature. This film doesn't only show the horrors of NAZI Germany, it also shows how easily the human mind can rationalize and trivialize the large scale implementation of amoral if not criminal policies; it's interesting to note that most of those attending that fateful meeting were attorneys or had a legal professional background. Finally, as the film reveals the logistics of bureacratic function in general, it is perhaps an ominous portent as to how our corporate establishments (or any other human institution)can both rationalize and trivialize human life when evaluating loss and profitability: a common symptom when such entities are deciding to market or dispose of goods they know are dangerous or even deadly: it's just on a smaller scale and less discriminate.
Movie Review: Watch it before Nuremberg Trial movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is surreal, true and weird to watch. Am not from Europe, and my country was not affected by the Nazis. So my views may be unclouded with emotion, but may also sound harsh to some. My apologies in advance.
1) The movie is how the Nazis view the Jews. Period.
2) The General heading the conference states that Germany has exhausted all options to "purge" europe of all jews, "from Belfast to Belgrade". No Free country in Europe is willing to take jews. Not even USA. So, if USA had agreed to accept the expelled jews, would not millions have been saved? Probably USA has that guilty conscience today?
3) Hitler's constitutional inability to decide comes to the fore when he authorises a person to talk about the question of purging of jews, but gives authority to the General to annihilate them. This leads to a major clash. The chancellery representative clearly states that Hitler told him that Purging was the only option, not annihilation. His words: "Purge the Jews, yes. But annihilate them...that we have undertaken to systematically annihilate all the Jews of Europe? No. That possibility has been personally been denied to me by The Fuhrer! "
to which the General coldly replies: "and it will continue to be." That left me stunned.
4) Many of the SS and Nazi party members are clearly unsettled with the prospect of annihilation. They want the jews to be pushed out of sight, not mass-murdered. But they support the person who killed 30,000 jews in Krakow. Weird. Very Weird. The Reich must have been a surreal land.
5) Martin Bormann's representative, a jowled old idiot is every bit the Nazi partyman: ruthless, idiotic and smug.
6) The Germans are very careful in following laws and making the whole purge as lawful as possible. They study the Race laws of Nuremberg and make sure it is followed. So the myth of lawless nazis is a clear lie. The "imposition of ad-hoc law" as the nuremberg laws creator states.
7) First-degree Jews will be sterilized forcibly. If you watch the movie Nuremberg Trials you will see the Germany lawyer arguing in favor of Judge Ernst Janning that sterilization of a particular witness was done because of his lack of mental ability and NOT due to race. So...
8) The General clearly states that deciding who is a jew or not (3/4 blood, blah, blah) will decide solely with SS: thus sealing their fate.
Movie Review: Habits of Highly Effective Nazis
Summary: 5 Stars
What's most disturbing about this film is that Eichmann manages an underlying moral and cognitive chaos in the SAME way that in America today, conferences like this one are stage-managed to arrive at a predetermined result.
There is a lot of loose talk, of course, about the banality of evil and "evilduuers" as a stage villain on whom we can project our unavowable desires. The trouble is that there isn't, anymore, any loose talk about Fascism as a lens for examining our own society's mechanisms, in particular the way Fascism manages stupidity, cowardice and fear.
To use the word "Fascist" in reference to America today is to fall out of the grid.
A book by William Pfaff on the mismanagement of Iraq since 9-11 is called "Fear, Anger and Failure" yet to name it thus seems somehow, today, to scream in a vacuum like a spaceman. This is because while we cannot know Fascism from the outside (it being a thing of darkness which we like Prospero must acknowledge ours) we sure as hell can when honest identify with the surface order (the terrorized waiters: the snappy meals: the preparations perfectly laid on, in Barbara Tuchman's phrasing, in the German style, only to miss the crucial points, such as compassion), as contrasted with the underlying chaos.
Thus the bodies coming home from Iraq are known by insiders to be completely irrevelant and the chaos named in an Atlantic article two months ago by William Langieweische (the circling to land and the failure of the flight attendant, in otherwise following procedures at Baghdad International, to bid the passengers have a nice time, in Baghdad) is known by insiders to be permanently off the Power Point agenda.
Even on the system's own terms, the underlying mess is real although only named and narrated by the subaltern, the *Gauileiter* charged with preventing cholera, who is no longer,on pain of career stasis, permitted to make empirical generalizations. But the participants realize that for all their heel-clicking Enlightenment they are in chaos (represented by Klopfer's bulk).
I do not wish to overdraw parallels yet somehow the parallels cannot be overdrawn at this point, as when Euclid tried to master the geometry of Hell.
Movie Review: Conspiracy: Passion and Enthusiasm for Evil Deeds
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a definite reason that many of Amazon.com's most favored and prolific reviewers have reviewed this DVD, and what I would call a companion piece, the German film (available on Amazon) from the mid 1980s titled "The Wannsee Conference" (which did receive two important 1988 American film and video awards).I will start with a sad and perplexing comment. Many Jews I have asked, and most non-Jews, do not know what the Wannsee Conference IS. This is an abomination and an indictment of--of what? Our secondary education? Jewish education? Religious education? I do not know the answer, but I do put this event in the class of many distinct ones that led to the death and maiming of millions upon millions of men, women, and children worldwide.
In the space of about 90 minutes (the length of each film), Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SD and SS (which when I ask many Americans, I find are acronyms that draw blank stares). One transcript survived, ironically, that of attendee Martin Luther, found in a file (according to official records) evidently having nothing to do with The Final Solution To the Jewish Question (Endlösung der Judenfrage). This, despite Heydrich's admonition that all copies are to be destroyed, and the contents discussed only with superiors
This should be an relatively tolerable introduction to the horrors of the period amongst the aspiring cognoscenti (even those who would not watch a gritty portrayal of war such as "Glory". This will stimulate discussion and further reading and viewing of equally important works (all available right here on Amazon.com). It was produced in the year 2000; anyone who does not know its content (whether one considers actual numbers, portrayals, and proposed Final Solution techniques used intellectually debatable) cannot purport to be knowledgeable of the issues underlying the War on Terrorism. It should lead the view to a better understanding of what Fascism is, why it flourishes and why it should be feared. Hopefully, it can also lead to a deeper understanding of the foundations of the American Republic, so hotly debated, which are supposed to protect us from such ignoble forms of government.