More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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27 February
This is a review of The Book Thief (2013)
John Williams famously gave us Hedwig’s theme, but he also scored The Book Thief (2013), and, at the opening, it almost seemed like The Hogwarts Express, snorting its way through snowy countryside, that we saw and felt. Airy solo flute, floating solo clarinet, and the ensemble as the whole, did not seem best intended for Germany of the time, for it felt a little too safe (although, in the screening, not everyone would have been conscious that the mood of the music seemed an uneasy fit), even as we made our way down one of its carriages, and – under the direction of the narrator – wondered : whose life was going to be affected ?
Perhaps, by this means, too, we wanted to be distanced from a brother’s death and burial in a foreign land, and reminded of the context of everyone’s mortality, and so do not resist being cocooned from the worst of the Nazi regime until, as maybe those in Germany did we were embedded in it*. Wrongly, arguably, Roberto Benigni was criticized for bringing humour to a father’s treatment of the horror of life in a concentration camp in Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (1997), but it is a more obvious example of what this film does.
For we are bedding ourselves down with the domestic arrangements of Liesel’s new home, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) welcoming, and Rosa (Emily Watson) decidedly ungemütlich, for quite a while, and even having the shock of having the camera draw back whilst the choir that she is in sings of how it will not be friends with the Jew.
Liesel’s (Sophie Nélisse’s) friend Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch) provokes more than paternal condemnation with his desire to be another Jesse Owens, but it is with Kristallnacht that the outrage of the Nazi reign comes to the fore, with its consequences for Liesel’s family. Then the full love of both Hans and Rosa come out, and the film focuses tightly on the things that matter : love, friendship, and trust. From that core of values comes all that follows, and, whilst we see just and unjust fall alike, it also shows the good done from following one’s convictions.
There are a few quibbles with the world that we are shown and hear, but they are minor ones**. Otherwise, the film may feel a little overlong, partly because of the time until the story proper begins. However, it catches all the emotion that has built up in its course and brings it out from the tensions of betrayal, feared discovery, the accidents of war, and renewed beginnings, not just speaking to a younger audience, but to those with a more mature appreciation of the background.
It is testament to the film, and no doubt to Markus Zusak’s novel, that it can stand alongside a more bloody account of the effects of the war in Lore (2012) and, not seeming in its shadow, be a complementary account of a youngster in the midst of it.
Post-script
Robbie Collin, writing a review in The Daily Telegraph, decided to be very rude about the film - is he right ?
End-notes
* Even then, it must be said that, probably seeking a certificate such as 12A, the ferocity and frenzy of Kristallnacht are underplayed.
** It probably reminds us that we are in Germany, to have (after some initial German with subtitles) English spoken with a German inflection, but it seems curious never to have no or yes, always ja or nein, and the Bürgermeister, in which he is not alone, just sounds British, e.g. when he says What is the meaning of this ?.
Also, with language, the idea of the dictionary on the walls lets us overlook the fact that these words are in English, but it seems to go too far to show Liesel finding the word ‘jellyfish’ in a text that is obviously in English, when we know that it is meant to be in German. And, finally, in proportion to the size of the school, either because period locations were scarce or it is a set and not an extensive one, the town does not have the feel of one that could fill it.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
