"Good" is good news for Viggo Mortensen in that he gets to flex his acting chops in a new direction. But thin directing and screenwriting fail to provide the power needed to bring his performance to life
Breakthrough narrative feature director Vicente Amorim pulled off the brass ring when he got the green light for something completely different: Viggo Mortensen without a history of violence. Unfortunately Amorim’s past experience of shorts and documentaries did not equip him to deal with the depth and breadth of the pain of the Third Reich. The film comes off as a commendable piece of practice work but one that only died-in-the-wool Mortensen fans will see.
Viggo plays Halder, a liberal arts professor with a couple of books to his credit and, being 1935 in Nazi-land, a Jewish best friend to his discredit. Halder’s best friend is Maurice (Jason Isaacs---“Black Hawk Down,” uber-villian Colonel Tavington in “Patriot”). The two served together in WW I and have their share of bitter experiences to bind them. But none as cowardly as the paper-hanger Nazi regime was about to release in the form of the Holocaust. Maurice fought for his country and was as German as anyone else regardless of their religion. In a very macho portrayal of a future victim, he refused to leave the country he considered his homeland even as it was systematically stripping him of his humanity. Finally for Maurice and many others it was too late too leave. Halder is his last hope.
After struggling with the brutalism of the Democratic Socialist party, Halder finally joins the Nazis when his plum job at the university is threatened. As time goes on he smells the smoke of burning books and sees the lackey bureaucracy of the regime replacing academia in the hearts and minds of the young. He marries the stunning Anne (Jodie Whittaker—the fireball Jessie in Peter O’Toole’s “Venus”) who has even less sense than he of the brewing pact with the devil. His friends join the ranks of the party and are drunk with the power it confers. Halder knows something is wrong but he can’t figure out what it is until he sees his only friend in the world being destroyed by that which feeds Halder.
Pal Freddie (Steven Mackintosh) and newfound party buddy Bouhler (Mark Strong) provide commendable supporting work as Germans-without-morale-compass. Gemma Jones almost steals the show from Mortensen as his seemingly senile mother who occasionally babbles truth that Halder can’t believe he is hearing.
Cinematography is by BAFTA Award Winner Andrew Dunn who brings the required somber settings to the inside shots, suitably exalting various Nazi cheerleading banners in the classic upward-looking angle. Exterior shots although few are brightly lit and frequently include wind. The use of the wind is unusual, most directors would eliminate it as detracting from the actors and the story line. But in this film the wind is there as a constant reminder of the change in the air. It is also a constant irritant, the background noise that prevents relaxation and contentment, the in-the-face reminder that action is required.
As for the sound track, the speech patterns seemed to have two volumes, soft and screaming. Too much noise, banging and slamming seem to be used to substitute for character development and the power of the screenplay. There is insufficient development of the friendship between Halder and Maurice, too little history to show how they were bound, too little chemistry to power Anne’s betrayal. It is supposed to be a shock, but we expect it, we are waiting for it. Load voices are not required to tell a story of mutual self-destruction arising from a field of despair self-loathing. Such was the soil of pre-WWII Germany that we all know. The only thing left to tell is the inward thought process of the citizens who became ciphers and lived as opposed to those who kept their humanity and died. This is not a story of loud voices; it is a story of prayer and last rites.
It was a pleasure to see Mortensen in the role as Halder, a man of inertia, dither and moral confusion as compared to his previous roles that copped out to flawed, reflexive violence. Playing an academic he has the opportunity to discard the macho cover-up of "Eastern Promises", and project the more common from of human stress of simply not knowing what to do. His performance is good but not a landmark---his fans will see the film anyway. The bad news is that the directing and screenplay are lacking. In a couple weeks "Adam Resurrected" will be released, yet another film exploiting the Nazi "bad" factor. Enough already---no more Nazi bad guy films! The formula is dead. The gauntlet has been thrown---make films like this in the context of the Bush administration killing thousands in Iraq and forget the Nazis. Darfur, Zimbabwe...we have enough evil that is current without going back seventy years.
But whatever happens, make sure Viggo Mortensen is part of the movie.
Written by: C.P. Taylor (play) and John Wrathall (screenplay) Starring: Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs Release: December 31, 2008
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