Les leçons persanes

This is a very new twist in an old genre. its a psychological thriller between two uneven characters. Lars Eidinger gives a tremendous performance that is nothing short of christoph waltz in Inglorious basterds. but he gives his character more depth and transforms him from a sadist to a man who also seeks love.

If you like this, I can also recomment Der Hauptmann with Max Hubacher turning from a refugee into a mass murderer. These two films are great exercises on the psychological mechanics of faschism.

The acting and directing are actually pretty well, i also loved the idea. People in desperate situation do anything to survive.

But quickly i saw the surrealism of the entire premise .

The story would have been much more credible if he had a t least something in touch with the Farsi language, but basically make up a story completely from scratch is just insane that would take linguistic masterminds years, and lots of notes to pull of( Tolkien for example for his lords of the rings, and he studied languages) the idea is interesting, but a language is more then just learning words out of head, it has rules,sentence constructions,etc. Its just becomes sillier and sillier near the end.

Too much convenient random stuff happening for the sake of plot.

Pity, wasted opportunity.

I would vote an Oscar for this one if I were in the Academy. An unusual premise underpins a tension-filled two hours, culminating in a virtuoso climax that was the perfect denouement. Great performances, too.

A resourceful camp prisoner decides on the spot to impersonate a Persian to avoid being executed as a Jew in wartime France. Coincidence has it that one of the officers wants to learn Farsi, as he has the plan to move to Teheran after the war. Reza, as he now calls himself, teaches Klaus a completely invented language, which has the challenge for himself to also remember what he is "teaching". As a support he uses parts of the names of the camp inmates which he registers in a book as part of his job. There are scary moments when you think the scam will come out, but also it is funny to see how this smug officer is fooled. The film is gripping all the way long and of course you are curious how this will end for both of them. The actor portraying Reza is excellent, hung between being scared and needing to be convincing.

What a remarkable story! It is captivating and touching from start to finish. The final scene is very effective and moving.