Good: L'indifferenza del bene

it is not good, it is not bad. it is a mirror. the subject is delicate and old. the action is not amazing. the innocence is a not interesting stuff. and yet, it is a beautiful story. a real beautiful story. as a lake in evening. as a rain in park. because, in fact, its subject is not Nazi regime, limits of friendship, need of refuges, relation with political circle but art of survive. way to be yourself. that is axis and purpose is not create a masterpiece but occasion to meditate. the central character is a crumb of family, job or events. innocent, frustrated, for who each door may be escape by himself. he is not a hero. and price of desire to not be hero is sufferance in many nuances, more heavy. in concentration camp he discover color of reality. not the reality. because reality is a mirror who presents his face.

What have I done? What have I done? You can imagine that Professor John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) was asking that question over and over.

He seemed not to understand what was happening to him as he let himself be used by the Nazi's. First, he joins the party, then he loses his lifelong friend simply because he was Jewish. It was only when he was picked to inspect the death camps did he come to a full realization of the depths into which he had sunk.

How do you cook a lobster? If you throw it into a pot of boiling water it will scream and jump out. But, if you put it in water and slowly raise the temperature, it boils before it knows what/s happening. Professor Halder was put in tepid water and the temperature raised gradually until the shock hit him full force, and he could not escape.

Mortensen was very good, but his friend Morris (Jason Isaacs), a Jew, was excellent.

I never give much attention to the titles of films. Usually titles represent an idea of a film, or a line, or a character. The context of "Good" implies that it was wanted to say "Virtuous people" by the title.

Were SS good people? Decent? Average? Normal? OK? Bearable? "Good" presents a point of view of a person who thought himself to be virtuous, but then faced a society which was completely different, but thought so too.

Viggo Mortensem gives us an interesting character with it's ups and downs, and these ups and downs are in the behavior of a character, not the acting.

Furthermore, it was not the acting or an idea that dragged the film down and bored me or others at certain moments. It was the fact that WWII has been discussed for many times, so there are only minor differences between one film and the other.

Those who haven't watched a lot of WWII films or who would like to see one more example of censure will like "Good".

Germany 1933, at the raising Nazi Regime, John Haider (Viggo Mortensen) is a good man, a brilliant professor of literature who has to care his ill mother (Gemma Jones), wife and sons. The professor suffers interruption of some radicals students who burn books in his University's courtyard . He writes a book that defends the euthanasia as method to sure a dignity death to ills. His novel is a upright success in the III Reich hierarchy (Mark Strong, Steven Mckintosh), including Hitler who takes his novel as justifying oneself the dreadful crimes against Jews. The Nazi authorities press and threaten Haider to collaborate with Gestapo and write about legalize euthanasia. Haider is going into the spiral of Nazi savagery. Meanwhile he falls in love with a student (Jodie Whitaker)and his Jewish friend (Jason Isaacs)being besieged by the Nazi pursuers.

This is a splendid drama set on Nazi epoch with thoughtful plot and slick direction .From the sage play by C.P. Taylor, as the producers wish to thanks Royal Shakespeare Company and the original cast and crew of the play. It packs a colorful and appropriate cinematography by Andrew Dunn. Enjoyable musical score by Simon Lacey and including Mahler songs . The flick is well produced by Miriam Segal , as the film is made in memory of his father Ronald Segal whose life's work was dedicated to the betterment of the rights of the others. The motion picture is professionally directed by Austria-Brazilian director Vicente Amorim.

The movie talks about various historic events as happens ¨The night of the broken glass¨ well re-enacted in the film, as the night of November 9, 1938, when terror attacks were made on Jewish synagogues and stores. Two days earlier, Vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris , had been assassinated by Grynszpan, a Polish Jew. In retaliation, Himmler (though doesn't appear at the movie is continuously appointed) and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD, ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany and Austria.The assault had been long prepared , the murder provided an opportunity to begin the attack. In fifteen hours 101 synagogues were destroyed by fire and 76 were demolished. Bands of Nazis (one of them is our starring Viggo Mortensen, though unaware) destroyed 7.500 Jewish-owned stores. The pillage and looting went on through the night. Streets were covered with broken glass , hence the name Kristallnacht. Three days later Hermann Goering along with Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbles ( played by Adrian Schiller) called a meeting of the top hierarchy at the Air Ministry to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Goebbles proposed that Jews no longer be allowed to use the public parks. It was decided that the Jews would have to pay for the damage they had provoked.

A new movement for change, promising a life richer in education, physical prowess, diminished crime, and increased wealth is like a magnet, and the promises that National Socialist Republic created in all forms of the media in the 1930s were probably heady enough that the post World War I Germans could turn a blind eye to the vacuous reality of a rising maniac's promises. GOOD is a film that suggests how the good common people responded to the rise of the Third Reich - the Nazi party with its loathsome guardianship in the Gestapo. It suggests how personal needs could cloud the mind to see only the benefits of a new order that would eventually destroy millions of people and attempt to transform the world in a new social order. And it is painful to watch the disease progress into every aspect of life in Germany.

John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) is a professor of literature and a writer of novels: his latest novel is a fictional story about a man who, out of love for his suffering wife, assists her dying. This novel catches the eye of Hitler and the Reichminister Bouhler (Mark Strong) who encourages Halder to draft a paper describing how euthanasia is a good and righteous act - a paper that will eventually 'justify' the massacre of Jews and other 'undesirables'. Halder's life is in such upheaval (his mother (Gemma Jones) is dying of tuberculosis while living with Halder and his piano obsessed wife Helen (Anastasia Hille) whom he divorces, Halder finds happiness only with a student Anne (Jodie Whittaker) who is fascinated with the Nazi party, and Halder's only close friend is psychiatrist Maurice Israel Glückstein (Jason Issacs) who is Jewish and loathes the Nazi party. Because of Halder's needs in life and also because of the glory he feels being praised for his novel, he agrees to be an 'advisor' to the party. His confrères include Adolph Eichmann (Steven Elder) and Josef Goebbels (Adrian Schiller) and slowly the good man John Halder becomes immersed in the Nazi party.

Maurice, being Jewish and detesting John's alliance with the Nazis, must escape Germany as the Jewish purge begins. His only hope is aid from Halder's Nazi affiliation and he desperately seeks Halder's help. Halder is unable to come to Maurice's aid; Maurice is evacuated and Halder's inspection of the concentration camps makes him face his worse fear about his selling out his morals and honor and his losing his closest friend.

GOOD began as a play by C.P. Taylor and was transformed into a screenplay by John Wrathall. Vicente Amorim directs a cast of mixed experience, but from Mortensen and Isaacs and Jones he draws fine performances. Throughout the film Halder has aural delusions: at times of stress he hears music, a factor that in retrospect makes us question his own stability. The music he hears is a sad rewriting of the works of Gustav Mahler -' Die Zwei Blauen Augen von meinem Schatz', and 'O Mensch!' from the Mahler 3rd Symphony (both sung in English translations by people on the street!), bit and pieces of score quoting phrases from Mahler in a very pedestrian arrangement, and finally orchestral recordings of moments from Mahler's Symphonies No.1 and No.3. The pedestrian quality of the score weights the film down. The cinematography by Andrew Dunn is fine (the film was shot in Hungary). Overall, it feels like this is a strong idea of a statement of what happens to the minds common men in times of crises. For this viewer it simply doesn't accomplish its goal, despite the worthy attempt Viggo Mortensen makes.

Grady Harp