Der Stellvertreter

This is a must watch film. It's a complex and controversial story, well written, well acted, and the direction is superb.

The one dimensional nature of the main characters works very well - we see but a snapshot of the complexity of human nature and this begs you to ask the question of what would you do if you found yourself placed in such circumstances.

This is perhaps a trademark of Costa-Gavras's work (Mad City, Missing and Z in particular)

It is not just a cold view of the history of the time nor is it seeking to provide an answer to the big question - just shed light on the circumstances and on human nature.

Thoughtful and brooding film with excellent interpretations and horrible events . The picture talks an officer Gestapo named Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) in charge of Zyklon B , a deadly chemical gas used for killing Jews in the death's showers from concentration camps as Treblinka , Sorbibor , Auschwitz , Majanek , Manthausen ,.... , Gerstein contacts a Jesuit priest (Mathieu Kassovitz) who's related to a Vatican Cardenal (Michael Duchaussoy) and his father results to be Pope's assistant . He denounces and explains Pope Pio XII (Marcel Iures) the situation of the Jews's genocide .

The pic is correctly based on historic deeds and famous personages as Pio XII and Nazi chiefs who don't appear in the film but they're continuously named as Goering , Goebbles , Himmler , Eichmann ,thus as notorious events as Stalingrado (1943) where Nazis have the first important defeat and the bombing strikes over the Germany cities (Berlin , Dresde) . The movie is based on a play by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth which started a lot of heated discussions and arguments after its first release in 1963. The film blends drama , tension , historical events and in spite of the runtime is two hours and some isn't boring , nor dreary but happens enough interesting deeds . The Vatican did not give a permission to shoot the film in their buildings. After searching a scenery of adequate size for the scenes taking place in the Vatican, Costa-Gavras finally chose Europe's largest building, the House of the People in Bucharest . Some of the outdoor scenes were shot in Mogosoaia Palace, some fourteen kilometers northwest of Bucharest. The movie attained quite polemic but there's an accusation to Catholic Church for passivity on the crimes and mass slaughter . I really think that didn't have but lack of forecast . The motion picture was well directed by Constantine Costa Gravas who at all his films always gets controversy and dispute . Rating : Above average . Well worth seeing .

Very interesting...I do not know how true the facts are, that were presented, but I think the movie is really worth a look. Especially, if we consider that it isn't a typical American movie...of course, that's because it isn't American! A movie that has, more or less, a very significant meaning and moral...we all know about the Holocaust...the terror, unleashed by the German nazi's. The madness of men. And here we have a movie, filmed in Romania, with this theme. A German SS officer, Kurt Gerstein(Ulrich Tukur), finds out about the crimes against millions of Jews. He decides to kind of sabotage the killings, and ultimately ends up, wanting to tell Pope Pie XII(Marcel Iures) about these crimes. He gets help from Riccardo Fontana(Mathieu Kassovitz), a Jesuit priest, in this matter. Riccardo's father is an important person at the Vatican(count) and so, he tries to help them. The story will be sad enough, and it will show the ignorance of the Catholic Church. If this is true, or it is not I can't say. But the movie is special, and touching. The trains have a very important role. Every time I saw them, I felt a shiver through my body, just because of the idea that they might be filled with people. The special effects could've been better. For example, when Riccardo goes to eat with his father and other personalities, you can see what seems to be the Vatican. But it is more than obvious that it isn't true. Of course, this is not very bothering... The music is absolutely perfect! I really enjoyed it, and I don't see who didn't! The actors were good, but there were some flaws, here and there. Costa Gavras, the director, did a very good job here, in creating an interesting movie. Despite the lack of much action, the film is pleasant, but shocking...well, how could it be if we consider the events? I think all should see this movie, especially because it's a good change from the American stereotype.

'Amen' is a recent release examining the relationship between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. We follow Kurt Gerheim (an admirable performance by Ulrich Tukur), a perfectly Aryan, protestant SS-Officer who tries to speak out against Nazi attrocities, and Ricardo Fontana, a young catholic cleric (played to the utmost by the marvellous Matthieu Kassovitz) who joins him in his fight. Ricardo's dissolusionment in the Church (which acts more as an institution for self-preservation than for good in this film) leads him to irrational and useless acts which do not conflict with his morality, rather than to more useful acts which do. The interest lies with the deterioration of Ricardo's faith in the Church's moral station and that of Gerheim's faith in his fatherland. Both find solace in the hope that they will put an end to the holocaust.

This is noticeably a continental European film, with brilliant direction and dazzlingly good acting, more Gosford Park than Schindler's List in terms of pace. Indeed, this slow pace only highlights the frustration felt by the two main characters as they are continually beaten down by the well-meaning leaders of their Churches.

Frustration, interestingly, is the only lasting emotion inspired in the viewer. Dr Germaine Greer attributed this, wrongly, I believe, to the fact that the film "doesn't seem to go anywhere", highlighting the leitmotiv frame of a so-called 'goods' train on its way to an unseen destination as a representation of this lack of direction. I would venture to suggest, though, that a conclusion is precisely what the director, the justly renowned Costa Garvas, was trying to avoid - he does not straightjacket his characters plainly as either heroes or villains and the film closes with the issues of morality it has raised left open-ended. It is meant to be thought provoking, not moving; the viewer is meant to conclude for himself what was morally correct and what was not.

At the end of the film, I found myself wondering which of the characters was most right - for none, it would seem, have a sole handle on the moral high-ground and there are arguments that promote each character's actions over another's. Whatever way you see this film and whatever conclusion you draw, it is a production which will not let you sleep easy until you have been challenged on many issues of morality.

The film offers an open-ended answer to this popular question. It begins with a graphic portrayal of the Nazi euthanasia programme which killed 50,000 'mental defectives'. This links us to the main protagonist, Kurt Gerstein, an SS scientific officer who develops the Zyklon B gas which allows mass-murder of Jews and Gypsies to proceed on an industrial scale. Gerstein's niece is a euthanasia victim. Gerstein is a committed evangelical Christian with an anti-Nazi past who normally would not be allowed into the SS. Gerstein's father is an enthusiastic Nazi who pulls strings to get his son into the SS, presumably seen as a safer option than the army and also as the elite corps of the Nazi state. Entirely plausible, as many evangelical Christians became enthusiastic Nazis. Gerstein's expertise in developing water purification and anti-typhus procedures for the German army allows him to prosper within the SS, despite his multiple treason.

The murder of his niece and the Jews appalls his Christian conscience. His wincing reaction whilst looking through the gas chamber spy-hole is well-acted. He alerts the Swedes and the Catholic Church, hoping that international pressure will awaken the German conscience. Catholic opposition has stopped the euthanasia programme and this can be mobilised to help the Jews.

In reality, Gerstein's options are limited. His own church leaders react mutely to his news of mass-murder. They caution restraint. Nazi indoctrination is trying to turn everyone into a rabid anti-Semite - as shown comically with Gerstein's youngest son giving annoying Hitler salutes. Most Protestants agree to join the new Nazi-sponsored 'Reich Church', happily reconciling faith with Nazism. Similarly, the 1933 Concordat with Hitler gave the Catholic Church a precarious protection as long as it stayed out of politics.

Carpet-bombing of German cities is killing women, children and babies. German forces are engaged in a titanic struggle against the 'forces of international Jewry ' - Russian Communism and American Capitalism. Facing this kind of mind-set and mass paranoia, the Jews needed a miracle. Saving mentally-handicapped members of German families is one thing. Saving a long-despised race thought to be the root cause of every world problem is very much another.

Gerstein's attempts to alert the Vatican are channelled through an invented character, a young Catholic priest who symbolises the conscience of thousands of individual Catholics who risked their lives to help Jews. He eventually sacrifices himself at Auschwitz, a Christ-like figure who 'redeems' his religion in the face of a terrible evil.

The controversial Pope Pius XII is portrayed in a curiously anodyne way - to the distaste of those who regard him as a Nazi sympathiser. The Vatican's fear of Communism, its efforts to hide Italian Jews and its self-preservation instinct in facing the Nazis are all clearly demonstrated. As is the help it gave to individual SS men on the run after the war. One is left to make up one's own mind about the Pope.

In truth, neither the Church nor the SS were monolithic organisations. Both were composed of individuals, good and bad. One reason for death factories was to save SS men from the horrors of mass-shootings. They offered a 'sanitised' method of killing, just as the 1933 Concordat offered a sanitised way for Nazism and Catholicism to relate to each other. Problems arose for individuals who had to make moral choices in carrying out these policies.

The controversial Roman lunch scene depicts the American ambassador discussing the fate of the Jews with Vatican big-wigs. Against a wonderful panoramic backdrop of the eternal city, they enjoy an excellent sea food meal. The American points out that finding an alternative home for millions of Jews would cause great problems. Nazi retaliation would only make things worse, counters a Vatican big-wig. A far cry from the cattle trucks rolling to and fro, emptying Europe of its Jews. This is a 'cheap shot' - decision-makers usually enjoy better material conditions than the rest of us. One can imagine Churchill discussing sensitive topics in a cold-blooded way over many a fine meal. It makes for good cinema, though!

This is an excellent film which covers a vast topic in 2 hours. It does not make judgements about Gerstein or the Christian churches. The Gerstein character is a complex one as is the Christian response to the Holocaust. It shows how difficult it is to 'buck the system' during wartime. Gerstein arrives at Auschwitz with the comforting knowledge that the allies 'never bomb the camps' - they know they are full of 'POW's'. Would prolonged bombing of the railways to the death camps have made a difference? Many Jews believe that this could and should have happened.

Should the allies have re-directed their military efforts to save Jews rather than merely fight the Nazis? Unfortunately, the 1930's and World War 2 had de-sensitised people to civilian suffering - newsreels from China, Abyssinia, Guernica; the Nazi bombing of Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, the V1 and V2 attacks of 1944. World War I blurred the line between soldiers and civilians. World War 2 completely obliterated this distinction - on both sides of the conflict. Axis forces brought death to millions of Chinese and Russian civilians. The Allied bombing of Germany, Japan and northern France all produced heavy civilian casualties. Is there an essential difference between mass-bombing and the Holocaust?

European anti-Semitism aided the Holocaust. The miracle is that so many individual Gentiles did so much to aid Jews. Nazism put new ideas about human rights to the test. Governments and organisations may have been found wanting – especially Vichy France. Individuals - including many brave Germans – responded magnificently. This is the 'positive' side of the Holocaust which we should remember and treasure. Gerstein did his best to sabotage and stop the killing machine he became part of. The film allows us to make up our own minds about whether he and the Catholic Church did enough.