Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
by Marc Rothemund

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DVD details

Actor: Andr? Hennicke, Fabian Hinrichs, Gerald Alexander Held, Johanna Gastdorf, Julia Jentsch
Director: Marc Rothemund
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language), Unknown; French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Zeitgeist Films

DVD Reviews of Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

DVD Review: A film of meticulous detail...
Summary: 5 Stars

The magnificnt achievement of director Marc Rothemund and writer Fred Breinersdorfer regarding a "modern day" martyr is nothing short of riveting. No explosions, big sets, etc., but a simple display of a period in history that can only cause disbelief. Based on actual transcripts and interviews, Sophie's story is told in a concise fashion. Though not fast moving, it's ability to provoke thoughts is to be commended. I can only add to previous reviewers' comments that the acting is, without exception, perfect. Julia Jentsch IS Sophie, an innate integrity that shows often without saying a word. Her "banter" with Gerald Alexander Held, is compelling. Her cellmate, Johanna Gasdorf, is wonderful and supportive, and the performance of the handsome Fabian Hinrichs (as her brother) is also perfect. There isn't a weak link. A surprise nominee as Best Foreign Language Film brought this film to my attention, and I'm glad I was acquainted with the wonderul Ms. Scholl. DVD extras are fine, and though I know a little German, subtitles would've helped in some of the interviews. There seems to be a new rush of Holocaust/Nazi films lately (Counterfeiters, Downfall, The Lives of Others), all fine, and Sophie's story stands proudly among these, and is more accessible, if only for it's profound simplicity and straightforward narrative. It's unpleasant, but we really should never forget.

DVD Review: Subdued Horror
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a brilliant film, which should be shown regularly.

Julia Jentsch gives a subdued and controlled performance in a understated film. The director deepens the horror of Sophie Scholl's predicament through a methodical presentation of her examination and trial.

The overall emotion of all the players is fear and the director conveyed that fear convincingly in his almost zen-like approach to the banality of the police and judicial system, which leads the viewer and Sophie to the singular mechanical horror of the guillotine.

DVD Review: the war
Summary: 5 Stars

***mild spoilers**********
The movie focusses on the exchange between the Nazi official interrogator and Sophie.

Their exchange illustrated a historical conflict that has been going on for at least the past 300 years.

There are those who are determined to create a new world order, and are willing to lie and intimidate and kill the innocent in order to create a society that will give the greatest happiness to the greatest number of a subset people who they consider worth it. (The Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, The Eugenicists, The Nazis....)

Then there are those who do not.

Here is a conversation from the movie

Girl: [talks about Nazis killing mentally retarded children]
Official: Their lives were not worthy. (worth living)....[talks]
Girl: No one, regardless of circumstances, can pass God's judgment. No one knows what goes on in the minds of mentally ill. You do not know the wisdom that can be bought from suffering. Every life is precious.
Official: You have to realize a new age has dawned. What you are saying has nothing to do with reality.
Girl: it has everything to do with reality. With decency, morals, and God.
Official: [exasperated] God! God doesn't exist!

I cried. The German official wasn't a jerk. He was a reasonable, logical, well-meaning man. And it didn't end in 1945. I think in the USA alone, 80% of Down Syndrome kids are killed before birth.

DVD Review: Absolutely Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars

I watched this movie over a year ago and was truly amazed by the story. I happened to see it at a video rental establishment recently and that spurred me on to looking for a copy of my own. Seems like the older I get, the more interested I become in all historical events. We all need to know about many events that have transpired before revisionism does its dirty deed. Among many other sad events, Rwanda stands out as amongst the worst.

DVD Review: inspiring story of courage and vision
Summary: 5 Stars

a beautiful film...
fine actors portraying
people we only know over the course
of a very short span of time...
the action takes place
in a linear fashion, often in an
interrogation room, and we're
led on and on until the finish...
the lovely thing about this
film is that the end is shown
to be not an end at all...

good special features on this disc too!

Description of Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

2005 Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Sophie Scholl - The Final Days is the true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to thrilling, dramatic life. Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch (of recent cult fave The Edukators) in a luminous performance as the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Armed with long-buried historical records of her incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence in 1943 Munich. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to her comrades, 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 that is both haunting and timeless.

Through its simplicity and scrupulous attention to historical detail, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days proves to be both thrillingly suspenseful and emotionally devastating. During the peak of the Third Reich, Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch, The Edukators), along with her brother Hans and other students in Munich, formed a resistance group called the White Rose and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. Sophie Scholl begins on a crisp winter day, with Sophie and Hans distributing leaflets around the empty halls of a university before class is let out. The tension only increases as they are arrested, interrogated, and swiftly convicted in a brutal show trial. The heart of the film are the scenes between Sophie and her interrogator, Robert Mohr (Gerald Alexander Held), a loyal Nazi who nonetheless respected and perhaps even admired Sophie. Their arguments, distilled down from hours of historical record, crackle with emotion and resonate throughout history, from Communist totalitarianism to the Bush administration condemning critics of the Iraq war as traitors. Jentsch's restrained performance only grows more and more moving over the movie's course. A deeply engaging and powerful movie. --Bret Fetzer

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