kembattery

It is a rare quality in a film to combine both depth of content with emotion without falling into melodrama or cliché. This film succeeds. The result is a gripping, moving, instructive experience for the viewer, whose attention is held from beginning to end. Films about the Reich are abundant and yet Napola manages to be original. The story is good, the direction impeccable and the actors perfect in their authenticity. Aesthetics permeate the film: sombre yet lovely settings, colors, photography, close-ups. The whole of its qualities make for an intense viewing which never falls into bad taste or unnecessary violence or crudity: reality is enough to shake you up. Highly recommended.

Predictable, unduly long in its supposedly nerve-wracking scenes, exaggerated, trite in its plot and ending. In other words, if you're a cinephile don't waste your time on this film. Fine actors - and all of them are - are never a guarantee to retain your attention. The director makes unforgivable factual mistakes and borders sometimes on the ridiculous. The film drags on and makes one lose interest. One of the decisive factors in my evaluation regards cruelty on the one hand and sheer bad luck on the other: when these are exaggerated and exploited to such a degree, any film becomes boring. The viewer, exasperated, exclaims: "Come on! Give me a break!"

To watch this film today makes one very glad of the progress the West has made in the past fifty years over this erstwhile taboo subject. The well-portrayed prejudice regarding gay men, the injustice, the violence, the unacceptable hypocrisy of society has not yet been eradicated, but films like these - delicately explicit - definitely help make the general public more aware and more tolerant.

The actors could not have been better chosen, the director is top. The story itself is excellent, convincing and well-developed, combining elements of thriller, love story and classical drama. Super recommended.