Yet more on Valkyrie
Jan. 17th, 2009 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99First of all, I’d like to direct your attention to this article on the making of Valkyrie – http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article5474871.ece
It’s an interesting article in its own right, I might be biased though because the guy writing it has similar problems with the way the story is being told as I do. Mostly that it doesn’t work as a thriller because we all know that Hitler didn’t die then.
It also brings up the other thing that worries me, that it going to be a film stuffed with clichéd ‘now here are your good Germans’ sort of things where the plotters are civilised and the rest of the German army aren’t. Also that it might fudge their reasoning, which seemed (possibly I’m wrong, not an area I’ve gone into beyond a little reading) to be not ‘holy hell, we’re doing bad things in the East’ but more ‘WTF Hitler, you can’t run an army properly’. But then again, I’m thinking that would make for a less thrilling action picture. (Long suffering sigh)
The article also foolishly mentions ‘Conspiracy’ (that it shares at least one actor and one character with) and I’m like, why do that to yourselves, because ‘Conspiracy’ was brilliant. It’s probably one of the most horrific things you’ll seen and there’s not a drop of blood spilt on screen. We’re talking ‘I need a shower to wash the ick off’ horrific. It’s about a conference that various Nazi bigwigs went to to talk about what they euphemistically called the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’. And it plays it straight down the line. These are civilised monsters, you could probably have a conversation with these people easily. They like music and good food, and they’re somewhere beyond evil. It’s a wonderful depiction of the whole ‘the banality of evil’ thing. The best thing about it, unlike what Valkyrie seems to be trying to do, is that you aren’t given any sympathetic characters. The nearest thing was one man who was a General or thereabouts and who seemed to have left his sense of right and wrong and at least half of himself in Latvia but given that was where he was stationed, may well have already done bad things, and one of the politicos who is aware that this is very wrong indeed, but too afraid to really do anything more than be passive-aggressive about it. It also doesn’t try to be moral about it. It just presents itself and says ‘draw your own conclusions’.
The imagery on the film poster disturbs me, because, although they’re careful not to show a swastika, they do show the bottom of a flag that anyone can fill in in their imagination, so it’s like either do it or don’t. It does seem to be a film that lacks the courage of its convictions – either accept that your main character was a general in the German army of the time or don’t, but don’t go half way just for an image. I’m not saying it’s impossible to have the good guys draped in Nazi imagery, ‘The Eagle has Landed’ gets away with it, but the more realistic your film, the more careful I think you should be.
It’s an interesting article in its own right, I might be biased though because the guy writing it has similar problems with the way the story is being told as I do. Mostly that it doesn’t work as a thriller because we all know that Hitler didn’t die then.
It also brings up the other thing that worries me, that it going to be a film stuffed with clichéd ‘now here are your good Germans’ sort of things where the plotters are civilised and the rest of the German army aren’t. Also that it might fudge their reasoning, which seemed (possibly I’m wrong, not an area I’ve gone into beyond a little reading) to be not ‘holy hell, we’re doing bad things in the East’ but more ‘WTF Hitler, you can’t run an army properly’. But then again, I’m thinking that would make for a less thrilling action picture. (Long suffering sigh)
The article also foolishly mentions ‘Conspiracy’ (that it shares at least one actor and one character with) and I’m like, why do that to yourselves, because ‘Conspiracy’ was brilliant. It’s probably one of the most horrific things you’ll seen and there’s not a drop of blood spilt on screen. We’re talking ‘I need a shower to wash the ick off’ horrific. It’s about a conference that various Nazi bigwigs went to to talk about what they euphemistically called the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’. And it plays it straight down the line. These are civilised monsters, you could probably have a conversation with these people easily. They like music and good food, and they’re somewhere beyond evil. It’s a wonderful depiction of the whole ‘the banality of evil’ thing. The best thing about it, unlike what Valkyrie seems to be trying to do, is that you aren’t given any sympathetic characters. The nearest thing was one man who was a General or thereabouts and who seemed to have left his sense of right and wrong and at least half of himself in Latvia but given that was where he was stationed, may well have already done bad things, and one of the politicos who is aware that this is very wrong indeed, but too afraid to really do anything more than be passive-aggressive about it. It also doesn’t try to be moral about it. It just presents itself and says ‘draw your own conclusions’.
The imagery on the film poster disturbs me, because, although they’re careful not to show a swastika, they do show the bottom of a flag that anyone can fill in in their imagination, so it’s like either do it or don’t. It does seem to be a film that lacks the courage of its convictions – either accept that your main character was a general in the German army of the time or don’t, but don’t go half way just for an image. I’m not saying it’s impossible to have the good guys draped in Nazi imagery, ‘The Eagle has Landed’ gets away with it, but the more realistic your film, the more careful I think you should be.
