Nazi

Cannes ban von Trier...

Oh dear, oh dear, Lars von Trier has certainly upset the Cannes-folk, hasn’t he?

Does anyone really not see how ridiculous this is? Has anyone who does insist that it was a very serious issue actually seen/heard the video? He preceded the comments by pointing out that his next film was a four hour long hardcore porn film starring Kirsten Dunce. With no dialogue.

This man is bored. This man is bored of the dull routine of press conferences and he rambles off on a provocative wander. He clearly has no idea where this ramble is going and laughs at himself throughout. So you don’t like the humour? Fine, I can’t say I’m wild about it either, but the “von Trier is a Nazi” headlines that everyone has been churning out just seem like willful media aggression. Which is pretty pathetic.

But the media are the media, they’re always been smug hypocrites. Luckily, the Cannes organizers are above all that … just as bad. It’d be bad enough that they were dismissing him for what was clearly a joke, given with all the other stuff they’ve put up with, if it weren’t for the smiling face of Emir Kusturica who’s running this year’s Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes. This is the same Kusturica who has very seriously made comments suggesting an extent of support for Milosevic.. Suddenly, Lars jests don’t look so important…

Edit: The Daily Beast have a very interesting post with a response from von Trier.

“It was stupid and the wrong place to be sarcastic,” von Trier admitted. “Of course, I don’t sympathize with Hitler. And, as we all know, the Holocaust was the cruelest and most barbaric crime against humanity of the last century … My only excuse is that if I think a press conference is getting boring I start to perform. […] The reason that I make these Jewish jokes is that, for half my life, I thought I was Jewish. If you’re Jewish, you’re allowed to make Jewish jokes. So it’s hard to break that habit when you find out that you’re not really Jewish. All of my children have Jewish names. I’m sorry that people took it the wrong way. But I know why; I was stupid enough to talk to the world like I talk to my best friends.”

What we have here, as so many times before when the world reacts with shock to particularly callous/offensive remarks is an absolute lack of context. The people at the press conference are familiar with von Trier’s style (there is plenty of laughter or at least nervous tittering through the video) and the people who watch von Trier’s films are familiar with his style. It’s only when remarks given in a closed circle spread (inter)nationally that things start to kick off and the apoplectic rage blinds everyone…

Anyway, if nothing else, this gives me an excuse to stick a couple of awesome Nazi-themed posters from sleazey films in this post. So without further ado, here’s

Deported Women of the SS [rate:4.9] 154 votes

and

Red Nights of the Gestapo [rate:4.7] 104 votes

. Quality, family-friendly entertainment, I’m sure…

Son Of Hitler

Sometimes you just can’t understand how or why a film was forgotten about. Sometimes you really can. Let’s just start with the title: it doesn’t bode well (or perhaps it does, depending on your opinion!). Son Of Hitler. Ok. Right. It’s a film about the son of Adolf Hitler. Unless of course it’s another Hitler or some kind of clever metaphor for… no, no, no, it’s that Hitler. Yes.

Well… - you might say - perhaps it’s some kind of historical documentary about Hitler’s ideas living on (no…) or… let me see…. could it be some kind of conspiracy theory about real surviving heirs? Again.. no. This is a fictional film about Hitler’s son. It is also a comedy.

Wow. A comedy, you say? Yes, a comedy.

Peter Cushing stars as nazi-saluting Heinrich Haussener, camping it up rather as he stomps around in a desperate attempt to find young Wilhelm Hitler, Hitler’s surviving son who was raised in the mountains in complete ignorance of the war. Or of reading. Or writing. Or what his name is. (He’s also implausibly young, given that this is set when it is filmed - some 30 years after the war - but that’s another issue)

And herein lies the er… ‘comedy’. Young Wilhelm is coming down from the mountains, birth-certificate (that he can’t read) in hand and is completely mystified by everyone’s astonished reactions. A local post-master chases him out the shop, he goes to a bar and drinks beer wearing full Nazi insignia, a judge declares his ’lies’ the workings of a damaged mind and commits him to a mental institute immediately.

It’s a bizarre mix of political ‘humour’ and slapstick fun. The slapstick element in fact almost succeeds in it’s complete bizarre senselessness - the straight-jacketed mental patients being forced to play football in the mental institute is a stand-out scene, the institute officer acting as referee finding it impossible to understand why they can’t master a simple throw-in… - as well as some mildly diverting comedy involving a paternoster lift - although whilst watching you can’t help but wish there were more skilled slapstick comedians diving in and out; it’s ever so Marx brothers but with none of the finesse.

This should hardly come as a surprise, as finesse is surely a word that few could associate with this film. Quite what poor old Peter Cushing is doing in this film, making over young Wilhelm in the desperate hope that he can continue the work of his father, is anybody’s guess. You really hope that he told his agent to get him back onto a Hammer Horror set as fast as possible. This was just one year after his appearance in Star Wars! Surely there must have been some mistake in signing up for this?

For those of us who can sit through anything with Peter Cushing in, it might well be worth a look, and for the rest? Well, it’s not entirely without merit…. merely almost entirely without merit! The handful of semi-humorous scenes do relatively little to make up for the tragically unfunny script, appallingly bad central concept and cack-handed production. You really do wonder at point this seemed like a good idea. And how many of the cast and production team kept coming back each day fully aware of what kind of monster they were making.

This film should never have been made. But as it has been made, you certainly ought to watch it. Sadly, it’s rare as hell and - I WONDER WHY? - appears never to have had a very limited release and has never made it to DVD. Let’s hold out for the Blu-Ray copy then, yes? Fingers crossed.

Poster Hunt #2 - Frauleins In Uniform

Poster Hunt was going to be an exploration of the most incredible movie-posters. The sublime, the ridiculous and the wonderfully crass.

Following on from the last though, which scored higher in the crass stakes than I could have hoped for before I found it, I am sticking with the (deservedly) much maligned Nazisploitation genre…

Here, without further ado, is the poster for your new favourite film…

Wow.

Described on IMDb as “In the last days of WW2, women are volunteering from all over Germany to serve in the front lines by having sex with the brave Nazi soldiers…”