War

From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
Though entirely based on “authentic” newsreel materials, this is a splendidly distorted “record” of the Nazi Blitzkrieg against Poland, designed to terrorize (particularly foreign) viewers into accepting the Nazis’ god-like military superiority. Kracauer’s profound analysis stresses the magic, irrational core of the film, its reliance on graceful over-simplifications, clever amalgams, a pseudo-narration that professes to inform, and insidious comparisons. Particularly frightening are its terrifying maps of encirclement and destruction from above. Strength and decisiveness are constantly stressed; suffering is, at most, cartographic, and death entirely absent.Read More »

Set at a factory that makes aircraft for World War II, Roma and Brad Maple’s marriage begins to show signs of difficulty. Their problems get worse when Brad’s friend Corky, who wants to work at the factory to avoid being drafted, arrives to stay with them and makes a move for Roma.Read More »

Quote:
Screwball comedy master Ernst Lubitsch took a rare stab at straight drama with 1932’s “Broken Lullaby,” the tense story of a soldier who attempts to make amends with the family of a man he killed in World War I. Preeminent French director François Ozon also wanders into unconventional territory with “Frantz,” his astonishingly beautiful and inquisitive remake of Lubitsch’s film, using it as a springboard for a profound look at alienation and grief.Read More »

A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation. Catch-22 is a parody of a “military mentality”, and of a bureaucratic society in general.Read More »

“Weapons of the Spirit,” Pierre Sauvage’s documentary about the extraordinary French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon during the Nazi rule in World War II, is like a murder mystery in reverse. It’s an examination of crimes that didn’t take place, of atrocities averted, and in such a way that history itself seems to have been subverted by their absence.Read More »

Synopsis:
It’s World War II, and British soldier John Bramble (Franchot Tone) is the lone survivor of a brutal battle in Egypt. After wandering through the desert, Bramble finds a remote hotel. There, in order to stay alive, he assumes a false identity. When the famed German general Rommel (Erich von Stroheim), aka the Desert Fox, arrives at the hotel, Bramble realizes he’s being taken for a German spy. Can this lowly British soldier turn the tide in the war and foil Germany’s plans in North Africa?Read More »

Framed around Queen Victoria’s decision on England’s political stance towards the Zulu Nation, this mini-series details King Shaka’s rise and fall with mythic detail. Prophecy is mixed with recorded fact regarding Shaka’s birth, exile, innovations in warfare, assumption of the throne, building of the Zulu Empire, first contact with Europe and the events that lead to his downfallRead More »

From the director of The White Rose and The Nasty Girl, comes this stunning adaptation of Hungarian author George Tabori’s autobiographical, somewhat surreal novel. Shifting between Nazi-occupied Budapest and present-day Berlin, the film artfully depicts the true story of how Tabori’s mother Elsa escaped deportation to Auschwitz.Read More »

Review by James Berardinelli:
“If you turn on the evening news these days, one of the first images you’re likely to see will originate from the devastated former Yugoslavia, where centuries-old hatreds have boiled over to ignite a scenario of unspeakable horror. Yet the sights of Bosnia, presented by TV as gruesomely tantalizing tidbits of violence and death, rarely provoke a reaction from the casual viewer. That’s how it has always been with television news programs, however — their coverage of any event, designed for those with limited attention spans, is superficial in the extreme. It’s nearly impossible to generate any strong feeling for a situation, no matter how cruel or inhumane it is, when all you get is a quick series of MTV-like clips.Read More »