The Gleiwitz Case
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Georg Leopold, Hannjo Hasse, Herwart Grosse, Hilmar Thate, Wolfgang KalweitBrand: First RUN Features
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); German (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 70 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-18
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Movie Reviews of The Gleiwitz Case
Movie Review: A brilliant Riefenstahl parody
Summary: 5 Stars
The historical inspiration for "The Gleiwitz Case" is the phony Polish raid on a German radio station staged by the Nazis to justify the invasion of Poland. I don't know how accurate to the actual events the film is, and to be honest I don't much care. Because the genuine value of "Gleiwitz" is its success in brilliantly satirizing the nonsensical Volk und Vaterland cinematic glorification of Nazism directed by Leni Riefenstahl.
Produced by East Germany's state-controlled DEFA, "Gleiwitz" is presented in a documentary-style format. The theme music is tinny, carnivalesque, almost cartoonish, letting the viewer know right away that a parody is going on. The images of goose-stepping, fencing, saluting, perfectly uniformed Nazis gives the impression of a huge, impersonally precise machine: the sort of thing that Riefenstahl valorized comes across here as both chilling and slightly comical.
The cinematography is really quite clever: a sense of frenetic build-up to war is expressed in a train scene in which Germans gobble food as the German army will soon gobble up Poland. A bar scene of men crooning a drinking song blends into the rhymic clanging of military transport railway cars. There's a wonderful scene in which rifles are held by soldiers in such a way as to make them look like erect phalluses--subtle, not overdone, but definitely noticeable to the quick eye. And the flashback scenes of the protagonist Alfred Naujocks' earlier years give us the life history of a murderer that, again, effectively combines the chilling with the comical.
"The Gleiwitz Case" is as effective an anti-war film as I've ever seen. Heartily recommended.
Summary of The Gleiwitz Case
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