Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by mr grits (A) on August 16, 2012 at 11:04:19

This film begins with a lone man staring at a wall reading graffiti which mostly consists of names and execution dates. We know it is 1944 and Nazi Germany is coming apart. We are then taken back 20 years to see how it all came to this.

The is the story of mechanic Behnke and his life under the rise of national socialism and the evils that came with it. Behnke did what he could to resist joining the party but was informed that job opportunities would dry up if not vanish. Reluctantly he joins and begins to feel the pressures of party members spying on him trying to locate his wife's brother, a communist who fled to Czech.

This is a gritty black and white and deserves a place in history for being the third movie produced by the East German film company DEFA. It doesn't merit awards against modern entertainments but serves as a propaganda tool for Germans (at the time) trying to overcome their immediate past and what to look out for in the future. This being highlighted by his son and his new fiance conversing in the same spot his mom in dad did in the beginning.

History buffs should go for it.