Angela
Elite member
- Messages
- 21,823
- Reaction score
- 12,329
- Points
- 113
- Ethnic group
- Italian
I've just watched the first two seasons of this series, and in my opinion this is one of the best recreations of what it was like in German occupied Europe during World War II that I've ever seen, and I've probably seen most of them, and I've heard stories of this time from family members and neighbors all my life.
It's excellently filmed and acted, but more importantly it's extremely subtle and astute in its portrayal of the moral complexities involved, and the variability of human behavior on both sides, if there can even be said to be only two sides. Yes, there are obviously evil characters in the film as there were in life (the SD commander), and it certainly doesn't attempt to whitewash history and portray the occupation as benign in any way, but the doctrinaire and rigid Communist cell leader is hardly a hero and role model, and there was greed, betrayal, and cowardice aplenty in the native population. In other words, people were people, then as now.
The depiction of the moral dilemmas in which local native authorities found themselves is very thought provoking, as in addition to the obviously ethically bankrupt opportunists there were genuinely sincere people trying to act for the best. At what point did their compromises lead them into complicity?
The series also raises some uncomfortable questions: how much moral, not to mention physical courage do most people possess; how long can civil order survive in these kinds of situations; what do these particular kinds of stresses do to marriage relationships, to children etc.?
If I have a criticism it has to do with the character of the Mayor's wife. Her repeated see sawing between one lover and another, even the horrific and horrifying and loathsome SD officer (how any woman could have found him sexually alluring is beyond me) and her husband, her alternating between being a devoted mother to abandoning her child, and her sainted husband's tolerance of the situation for so long was just totally unbelievable to me. I don't know if it was the fault of the script or the acting (Audrey Fleurot), but I just didn't buy it. Of course, it might be me.
It's excellently filmed and acted, but more importantly it's extremely subtle and astute in its portrayal of the moral complexities involved, and the variability of human behavior on both sides, if there can even be said to be only two sides. Yes, there are obviously evil characters in the film as there were in life (the SD commander), and it certainly doesn't attempt to whitewash history and portray the occupation as benign in any way, but the doctrinaire and rigid Communist cell leader is hardly a hero and role model, and there was greed, betrayal, and cowardice aplenty in the native population. In other words, people were people, then as now.
The depiction of the moral dilemmas in which local native authorities found themselves is very thought provoking, as in addition to the obviously ethically bankrupt opportunists there were genuinely sincere people trying to act for the best. At what point did their compromises lead them into complicity?
The series also raises some uncomfortable questions: how much moral, not to mention physical courage do most people possess; how long can civil order survive in these kinds of situations; what do these particular kinds of stresses do to marriage relationships, to children etc.?
If I have a criticism it has to do with the character of the Mayor's wife. Her repeated see sawing between one lover and another, even the horrific and horrifying and loathsome SD officer (how any woman could have found him sexually alluring is beyond me) and her husband, her alternating between being a devoted mother to abandoning her child, and her sainted husband's tolerance of the situation for so long was just totally unbelievable to me. I don't know if it was the fault of the script or the acting (Audrey Fleurot), but I just didn't buy it. Of course, it might be me.