Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
Directed by Marc Rothemund
In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on campus with her brother Hans. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility.
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What critics compared Sophie Scholl: The Final Days to
The sheer intellectual and emotional rigor of the back-and-forth between this terrible old lion and his cagey young prey is both crushing and exhilarating; my friend and colleague Jeffrey Overstreet compared it (brilliantly, I think) to the electrifying exchanges between Clarisse Starling and Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs .
We haven't seen a comparable clash between a principled heroine and a determined, malevolent villain since Agent Clarice Starling matched wits with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
Her interrogator is played by Alexander Held, who appeared in both of the German WWII films mentioned above, and their face-offs are equal or greater to the classic Foster-Hopkins moments in "The Silence of the Lambs," except of course, these are real conversations taken from the transcripts.
Julia Jentsch's portrayal of Sophie is nuanced and, at times, stirring, especially when she spars with Mohr, her Gestapo interrogator, played by Alexander Held (Schindler's List, Downfall), but it is Held who gives the most riveting performance of the film.
Bad enough to hear such things today from, say, the vice president of the United States looking to score some points with a cheap shot, but Scholl (the wonderful Julia Jentsch) heard it from the Gestapo interrogator, Robert Mohr (Alexander Held: Downfall ), who held her life in his hands.
Yet the contorted, shouting face of Freisler is no caricature, but an accurate reflection of the face that the Nazi party unapologetically presented to the world the face so heart-stoppingly brought to life by Bruno Ganz in Downfall.
As for Claire Danes lookalike Jentsch ("Downfall," "The Edukators"), her believable performance as the idealistic Sophie is what makes the film compelling.
…s with Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall , Sophie Scholl: The Final Days�Germany's official selection for the 2005 Academy Awards�partially uses as its guide historical documents and personal accounts to recreate a narrow look at the last earthly activities of a WWII icon, though in this case the figure whose climactic death is sympathetically obscured from view is not Hitler or Goebbels but, rather, freedom fighter Sophie Scholl.
They are still evil, but, as in Downfall, they are recognizably human.