Nowhere in Africa (German with English Subtitles)

Amazon.com

Both epic and heartbreakingly intimate, Nowhere in Africa begins with a Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich fleeing Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances (she brought with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown), while Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor. But this is only the beginning of a series of uprootings, and as the surface of their lives is torn away, Walter and Jettel find they have little in common, and must--under tumultuous circumstances--build their marriage anew. With incredible skill and passion, Nowhere in Africa manages to bring you fully into every change in this family's life; it richly deserves the Academy Award® it received in 2002. A powerful, deeply moving film. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Nowhere in Africa.......2007-07-23

Winner of the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, "Nowhere in Africa" is a vivid, powerful drama with elements of adventure, suspense, and romance. Narrated by the youngest of the clan, Regina (played by Lea Kurka and Karoline Eckertz), this is an heroic tale about one family's painful displacement and subsequent perseverance in adapting to a primitive but beautiful land. Maintaining an epic sweep without ever losing its rich emotional flavor, "Nowhere" is a stunning achievement.

Great Information on WW2.......2007-05-12

This movie was very moving. It tells the story alot more realist then most history books. It was long, but worth the 3 hours.

Spectacular film, beautiful cinematography.......2007-04-06

This film is AMAZING. Its now on my top ten list of the best films ever made.
Great character development, and full of irony.

It makes viewers realize how trivial and unimportant "things" are. It also makes me sick of American culture, because simplicity is not an acceptable part of life here. I gained a greater appreciation of what I have and that I don't need more. I love movies that make me think!

Loved it.......2006-12-15

I very much enjoyed this movie. Unlike some others, I didn't think it was too long, or the English subtitles mysterious, or the Africans shallow. I particularly liked that for once an African character is central to the story, and more than just decoration. Sure, he was "just" the cook, but the extent to which the family came to respect, rely, and TRUST him made him part of them.

I won't describe the plot, as that has already been done by many reviewers.

Having lived in Kenya, I have to say that the European actors did a fine job with the Swahili, considering they were just memorized lines. Their delivery was natural, with the obvious caveat of the heavy accents. But even so, they all spoke like they understood what they were saying.

I also thought this was a most unusual Holocaust movie and, while ever present, the Holocaust is not bashed over the viewer's head. It was a good balance.

Furthermore, the characters were all pretty complex; the director could easily have fallen into superficial cliche, but did not. The love between husband and wife is frequently complex and conflicted, and this was illustrated artfully.

If you like films about Africa, or complex, real-life type of love stories, or are interested in a virtually unknown aspect of the Haolocaust and WWII, this is your film.

An emotional powerhouse.......2006-12-12

This film is a truly epic experience, the type of film that one doesn't see too much of anymore these days. Based on an autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, it concerns the Redlich family, one of the lucky few families to leave Nazi Germany before it was too late. Walter, the father, saw the writing on the wall and left for Kenya in 1937, sending for his wife Jettel and daughter Regina six months later, in 1938. Normally one doesn't think of refugees from the Nazis as escaping to anyplace in Africa, particularly not Kenya, although there was actually a fairly substantial Jewish community in Nairobi by the time WWII broke out, along with other refugees, such as the Redlichs, living in more isolated and less-developed areas of the nation. Jettel is a bit of a Jewish German Princess at the beginning of the film, and has a very hard time adjusting to life in Kenya. She believes living on the farm in Rongai will be temporary, and was so unaware of the reality waiting for her that she brought her fine china and bought an evening gown instead of something more practical like a refrigerator before she left home. Her character proves to be the most interesting, the one who goes through the most development, becoming a very different person by the end of the film. Walter, in contrast, has a sea change in attitude in the opposite direction, and wants to return to Germany after the war instead of staying in Kenya, which has become like a home to his family and saved their lives. They also have to deal with their troubled marriage; they'd apparently begun having some problems before they left Germany, but their marriage is really put to the test in Kenya, particularly while Walter is away in the British Army for four years and Jettel is left to tend the farm. Young Regina is also a fascinating character; being so young, she adjusts quickly to life in Kenya, although, like her parents, doesn't ever really fully come to think of it as home. She has a number of different cultures to deal with--the German culture she left behind and the one she has a connection to via her parents, the native Kenyan culture and the Swahili language, and the British culture at the colonial school she attends. (Though most of this film shows us Kenya through the eyes of people living far away from so-called civilisation, this was still a time when most of Africa was under colonial rule, a much different Africa than it is today.) Her relationship with Owuor, the native who acts as a servant to her family, is incredibly moving and touching, one of the finest aspects of this film. Unlike her mother, she never has any hesitation about or resistance to befriending the natives. She doesn't care that their skin is dark and hers is light; they're just other children she has fun with and who like being with her, the same way that she instantly takes to Owuor, seeing him as a kind man who warmly welcomes her to Kenya. On the surface this is a historical film, but the true themes are about the nature of home, alienation, self-discovery, finding oneself, loss, and how sometimes the least likely place can become a refuge and come to feel almost like home over time. What is the meaning of the word home, does a refugee or immigrant ever really completely feel at home in a foreign land, and will these people ever really feel at home anywhere again, whether they remain in Kenya, return to Germany, or start a new life in an entirely new place? It's also a nice change of pace to see a WWII-era film set in Africa, to see how the war affected the native peoples, the dominating British colonialists, and the refugees like the Redlichs. The soundtrack is also incredibly gorgeous, as is the natural scenery.

There are also a wealth of bonus features. The audio commentary is top-notch, revealing such interesting facts as how Walter's voice was actually done by the popular actor Herbert Knaup but for two undubbed scenes (one of which is conducted entirely in English), because it was felt that Merab Ninidze, the true actor, had too strong of a Georgian accent, and that Silas Kereti, who plays Regina's friend Jogona as a young adult, was initially very hesitant about performing in one of the tribal ceremonies in the film because it was being done by another tribe, and he thought that taking part would mean that he were becoming a member of this other tribe. Other extras are deleted scenes (with optional commentary); a making-of featurette; interviews with Merab Ninidze, Juliane Köhler (Jettel), Matthias Habich (Walter Süsskind, a character who immigrated to Kenya before the Redlichs), Sidide Onyulu (Owuor), and Caroline Link (the director), Peter Herrmann (the producer), and Stefanie Zweig; score selections; a storyboard comparison for the locust scene; trailers; and a photo montage with commentary.

At almost two and a half hours long (and three hours long originally), this is a truly epic picture, a real emotional powerhouse. All of the characters are developed so well and acted so masterfully that one grows to feel as though one actually knows them, has gone on this powerful life-changing journey along with them. It's also not "just another WWII movie," since the setting and themes are so very different from the usual ones. Far from just another movie, this one makes the viewer think and feel instead of just being entertaining or delivering a lot of high-tech special effects. It's a shame more films in Hollywood aren't as masterfully crafted as this wonderful highly-recommended German film.

Average customer rating:

Engaging realism; ahead of its time
A good script!
Excellent story dealing with the morals of war.
WW II counterintelligence drama
Top-notch war thriller!

Decision Before Dawn
Starring: Richard Basehart , Gary Merrill , Oskar Werner , Hildegard Knef , and Dominique Blanchar
Director: Anatole Litvak
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
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ASIN: B000EHSVV4
Release Date: 2006-05-23

Amazon.com

Rooting for a German soldier was a daring choice for a movie made in 1951, but Decision Before Dawn justifies the risk; this is a crackling good war movie. In late 1944, the Allies are pushing through Europe but need intelligence behind German lines. Two Americans (Richard Basehart, Gary Merrill) recruit German POWs and enlist them to spy on their former Fatherland. We follow the adventures of one such agent, arrestingly played by the young Oskar Werner, who parachutes into Bavaria and gathers information. (Oddly, the film abandons Basehart and another recruit, marvelously played by Hans Christian Blech, who have also gone under cover.) The well-deployed suspense is accompanied by a constant examination of what it means to be German, and what loyalty to one's country really entails--dutiful devotion or skeptical rebellion? This question doesn't go deep (there's a sense that the movie is a make-nice effort toward a new economic ally), but the film is on solid ground whenever the clockwork suspense takes over. Hildegarde Knef (here billed under her Hollywood spelling, Neff) turns up as a conflicted fraulein. Director Anatole Litvak, shooting on location, gets some amazing shots of bombed-out buildings and ruined towns; in that sense, the film is almost like a documentary record of the postwar landscape. Decision Before Dawn was nominated for the best picture Oscar, but became a lesser-known film in the decades that followed. It deserves a higher profile. --Robert Horton

Description

Richard Basehart and Gary Merrill star in a film that?s ?as stirring a drama as any you'll want to see? (The New York Times). Adapted by Jack Rollens and Peter Viertel from George Howe?s novel Call It Treason, and directed by Anatole Litvak, this riveting World War II drama was nominated for the 1951 Best Picture Oscar®.

As the Third Reich declines in power, the Allies develop a radical new plan ? to employ German POWs as spies. Led by American Colonel Devlin (Merrill), and executed by Lieutenant Rennick (Baseheart), the plan is risky, and the tension builds as the Americans learn whether the former Nazis will help or betray the Allies.

Customer Reviews:

Engaging realism; ahead of its time.......2007-06-17

I'd never seen or heard of "Decision before Dawn" until it appeared in my recommended list on Amazon.com. Released in 1951, it apparently has been on TV a number of times, but I never caught it. Having it on DVD, especially at a bargain price, is welcome, indeed.

There are no big stars in the movie, although Gary Merrill, Richard Basehart, and Oskar Werner are certainly well-known names. The story is rather obscure in that it features Germans who change sides at the end of World War II, and end up spying on and fighting the Nazis. Some of these spies are heroic, like Oskar Werner's character; others are simply mercenary. In any event, we see that there were some good Germans who were loyal to their country, if not to the savage regime that took it over for 12 years.

The movie is in black-and-white, which lends itself well to the feel of the subject. It comes across almost as a docu-drama, to use modern terminology. Many of the outdoor shots feel like how Germany must have been in the latter years of the war after allied bombing had reduced most cities to rubble. You get a sense for the desperation and futility of ordinary people, as well, as the only "love interest" in the show, Hildegard Neff, vanishes almost as quickly as she appears. And she never is seen again.

If you're looking for a film that shows one of the pivotal points of the war, like "The Battle of the Bulge," or "The Battle of Britain," you might be disappointed in this show. But if you want to see a realistic depiction of patriotic Germans who resisted the Nazis and helped end the war, you should be pleasantly surprised. Acting is first-rate and the story is well-written and engaging.

There is not really a happy ending in "Decision before Dawn," unless you feel that the war is closer to its end as a result of what you've seen. In that sense, the movie really seems much ahead of its time and should find a receptive audience. As other reviewers point out, "Decision before Dawn" is really an anti-war film, showing as it does the futility of one group of humans intent on destroying another group.

In summing up, I can't think of another movie to compare this one to. I'd have to say the film is unique and worthy of its place in any World War II collection.

A good script!.......2007-04-05

"Decision Before Dawn" was written by Peter Viertel, once himself a member of the O.S.S.
It's a good script, full of weird characters, played by German actors like Hans-Christian Blech, Hildegard Neff and the famous O.E. Hasse. If you look close enough, you can even spot a very young Klaus Kinski!
The performance given by young Austrian master-actor Oscar Werner is simply superb.
If you like a gripping (anti-) war-movie, you'll be delighted with "Decision Before Dawn".
Watch out for a TV-documentary on the screenwriter Peter Viertel: "PETER VIERTEL: BETWEEN THE LINES". It will be shown in the fall of 2008. Don't miss it!

Excellent story dealing with the morals of war........2006-11-10

Definitely an anti-war classic story. Authentic in every respect and a good view and moral lesson for anyone with an interest in the meaning of loyalty to one's country. R. Woolfe

WW II counterintelligence drama.......2006-10-26

Anatole Litvak's engaging WWII drama "Decision Before Dawn" examines the war from an entirely different perspective. Filmed in the war ravaged remains of Nazi Germany in 1950, the story commences as American troops are poised to cross the Rhine and enter Germany. In the waning days of the war an American intelligence detail lead by Col. Devlin played by Gary Merrill and Lt. Rennick played by Richard Basehart are using captured POW's to act as spys. Using specially trained and suitable German soldiers they hope to gain sensitive information to aid in the war effort. Oskar Werner playing Cpl. Karl Maurer is just such a man.

Werner, an educated son of a physician, and not a loyal Nazi supporter, is a medic in the German Luftwaffe. He and Basehart along with another Nazi traitor code named Tiger and played by Hans Christian Blech are dropped behind enemy lines to determine the location of crack Panzer units.

What makes the film so unique, was that Werner's odyssey through the dying Third Reich gives us insight into the disposition of the German populace. Their downtrodden existence scrounging out an existence in the final months of the war is a disturbing sight to behold.

Litvack's film is a tribute to the nameless German spys who aided the Allied war effort.

Top-notch war thriller!.......2006-10-06

Based on real facts, this movie scrutinizes the ethic side of an idealistic and disappointed German medic / P:O:W: who decides by own will to become spy for his captors. He will be parachuted in order to demonstrate his firm resolution.

This might be the masterpiece of Anatole Litvak and the best performance ever given by Oskar Werner.

Tense, absorbing and high voltage movie.

Average customer rating:

Hitler's mission to "beautify" Germany through violence
generally a model documentary
Drink lots of coffee before watching this.
NAZISM AN ART? INTERESTING PREMISE, BOGGED BY MONOTONY
masterpiece.

The Architecture of Doom
Starring: Rolf Arsenius , Bruno Ganz , Sam Gray , Josef Goebbels , and P.L. Troost
Director: Peter Cohen
Manufacturer: First Run Features
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ASIN: B00003XALS
Release Date: 2000-03-14

Customer Reviews:

Hitler's mission to "beautify" Germany through violence.......2005-07-12

Several key points underpin Hitler's "mission" for the German people in this documentary directed by Peter Cohen: the need to make Germany racially clean, the need to make the ethnically Aryan people realise that they were always meant to be the dominant race in the world, and the need to make the German state the greatest in the world. Hitler's campaign in this respect was, so the film alleges, essentially civilian, but under a military guise.

The two-hour film opens with an aerial view of what is purported to be a German village, yet the background story concerns questions about what Hitler's racial theories and policies actually meant in practice. The Holocaust, in which six million Jews were exterminated during World War II, was merely the latest episode in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing", which had actually started back in the 1930s after Hitler had come to power. The focus was initially on the mentally ill and the deformed, but it later widened to include the Jews as "the microbe" which was allegedly responsible for "infecting" Europe, not just with their genes, but with their own ideas about art.

Propaganda films, which feature heavily in this film, essentially proselytize the German people into believing that the mentally ill, the retarded and the Jews were infestations that had to be eradicated. To this end, hideous methods were devised to "euthanise" the targets, whose families were lied to about the true nature of their deaths.

The death camps were the ultimate expression of Hitler's eugenics programme, yet the term could well be applied to the artistic depiction of the "perfect" Aryan, particularly through sculpture at the hands of people like Arno Breker. Through art exhibitions held every year, he wanted the German people to see what direction they should be taking, as he believed that art, his own former profession at which he ultimately failed, was one of the most significant props to his political regime. In order to emphasize the gulf between "pure" German art and those of "undesirables", he deliberately had works by the mentally ill displayed in so-called "Degenerate Art" exhibitions, albeit in separate locations.

As stated in the title, the term, "architecture", is prominent, though it appears that it is not as prominent in the purest sense of the word. His unbelievably ambitious plans for Berlin and the Austrian city of Linz are highlighted, including the relative absurdity of his receiving the final plans for a regenerated Linz, which would have included a gigantic museum of the arts, just three months before the end of the war in Europe. In this movie, we see Hitler's fleeting visit to Paris (then just conquered) very early on a June morning in 1940, where his mission was to look at the city's art treasures, including the Opera. It is even claimed that Hitler was so familiar with the plans of the building that he even noticed that an ante-chamber was actually missing; apparently, it had been eliminated during a renovation programme. The German conquest of Greece in June 1941 is also shown; Hitler envisioned a state that would be a hybrid of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and Sparta. Indeed, he considered Sparta to be the most ethnically pure state in ancient history.

The attack on the USSR later in June 1941 and the onset of the coming Russian winter in November allegedly turned the tide of the war against Germany, and even this received artistic expression when pictures drawn from the front highlighted the hardships of the German army fighting in the USSR. The overall war situations are given scant coverage, given the subject matter of the film, yet they are nevertheless put into their proper context. Hitler knew that defeat was inevitable, yet he actually looked forward to Germany's fiery defeat, reminiscent of what had happened to Carthage during the Punic Wars. The film claims that Hitler's war strategy may have been blighted by his apparent obsession with antiquity: he was allegedly fighting a modern war with ancient war objectives, which included enslavement of conquered peoples. Even if Germany was going to be destroyed militarily, he still ordered the continuation of the "Final Solution" as he believed that a defeated Germany would therefore be left with only with the weak, since the good would have died fighting for the Reich.

Anti-Semitism was, so Hitler claimed, justified on the grounds that he saw Jews as constituting an ethnic power bloc against the Aryan race. He therefore viewed his campaign to cleanse Europe of non-Aryans as a primary reason for conducting the war, and he used films, such as "The Eternal Jew" (shot in the squalor of Polish ghettos in 1940), in his propaganda campaign. He likened the destruction of the Jews to the destruction of rats and other pests; indeed, a pest control film (made in 1938) is shown as part of the propaganda where gas is used to kill pests; that same gas ("Zyklon-B") would be used in the death camps.

Overall, since it is a documentary, the film exists to inform rather than to entertain, but it does delve deep into Hitler's psyche in order to portray a failed artist (who made architectural sketches of planned buildings well into the war) obsessed with the "mission" to make Germany a mighty state primarily through racial purity and artistic expression - and, ultimately, violence of the vilest kind imaginable.

generally a model documentary.......2005-02-09

This is a superb documentary. Bold and controversial thesis. Evidence marshalled effectively. Great use of archival footage. Generally gripping and with very good pacing (occasionally there is a digression which, while important to the general line of argument, is not introduced in a way that makes the relevance immediately clear). Plus, don't you really want to know what projects seemed closest to Hitler's heart when the war was getting bogged down on the Eastern Front? Hint: They weren't military ones.

Cohen argues that the Nazi project was that of producing a better and more beautiful human being and race, a project that integrated art and the science of the day. The Nazi aesthetic was not just propaganda to get people to become committed Nazis, but was a goal in and of itself, from the earlier optimism of producing a better humanity (or at least Aryan race) to Hitler's eventual--but not unmotivated by earlier commitments--desire for an ending befiting classical tragedy.

The beginning is marvellously done. The portrayal of Nazism is so sympathetic that one is drawn in, and may even wonder if the film maker does not have Nazi sympathies. Any such wonder disappears within twenty minutes, but the film maker's ability to see what was so attractive about the Nazi project is crucial to the success of the film. In the end, one realizes that the Nazi project was evil in a way simultaneously subtler and yet deeper than one may have thought at the outset.

The film maker never draws parallels with our time. Still, the film should make one reflect on how the desires for perfect human beings and for the elimination of the imperfect are manifested now.

Drink lots of coffee before watching this........2004-07-02

I am a student of third reich history and when I heard of the release of this film I managed to see it at an independent theatre. While there is a great deal of interesting documentary footage and fair analysis this has got to be about the dullest documentary I have ever seen. There is no style to the directing or editing. The narration is even worse. The good points are negated by the overall stale production. This is certainly not a film to even rent let alone purchase. (Unless you are an insomiac.)

NAZISM AN ART? INTERESTING PREMISE, BOGGED BY MONOTONY.......2003-07-17

Google lists nearly 200 films about Adolf Hitler, most of them documentaries such as Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Fuhrer: Rise of a Madman.

The Architecture of Doom was perhaps the first to propose the notion that Hitler embraced the art of politics after failing as a painter, suggesting that Nazism was a reflection of the dictator's perverse aesthetic tastes. In its deconstruction of the Nazi movement, the movie is novel and shows an interesting, perhaps true, perspective.

But what minor grouse I have is with the narrative, which is just shy of 2 hours or so and sports a frequent monotone of showing Nazi art. Yet, thankfully, it doesn't detract substantially from the intriguing perspective that Hitler's whole pet project was perhaps more of a dogged pursuit of an aesthetic.

This documentary is definitely worth a watch if you are interested in the Third Reich in any way.

masterpiece........2003-04-26

This is the best documentry i ve ever seen aboat the Third Reich. It really shows the core, what it is all aboat. A Masterpiece is really a very good name for this movie.

Average customer rating:

Better than the original
It's OK, but.....
Worth the money, good addition to any collection.
The very rare footage
Interesting glimpse into history

The THIRD REICH In Color
Starring: John F. Kennedy , Marlene Dietrich , Joseph Goebbes , Eva Braun , and Adolf Hitler
Director: Spiegel
Manufacturer: International Historic Films, Inc.
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ASIN: B0000646UC
Release Date: 2001-08-31

Customer Reviews:

Better than the original.......2006-03-27

Like other reviewers, I think the sequel is better than the original. One only hopes that a 3rd installment will be issued with even better footage than the first two, especially if more 35mm films are found. Color adds a lot to the drama and presentation, mixing the horror of war and the death camps with pompous Nazi celebrations. Seeing these period films, it's hard to believe the Nazis were members of the human race.
Nowadays, top college football players to be drafted by the National Football League have to take a test of basic intelligence, the Wonderlic test. A score of 30, out of a possible 50, is considered a good score. Hitler and the other top Nazis would have been lucky to score a 10 on this test, because they simply couldn't count. What else could possibly explain attacking Russia and declaring war on America? At the same time, leaving Great Britain unconquered, and available later for a Western Front. The Nazis were outnumbered and had no chance to win, in the long run. For all their self-proclaimed superiority, these guys were simply not that smart.
Another thing that strikes me, especially in seeing atomic bombs exploding over Japan, is how incredibly lucky the Germans were. Hitler launched his last western counteroffensive in December, 1944. This was the "Battle of the Bulge," in American terms. If he had succeeded, World War II could have been stretched out 3 months or more. If that had happened, atomic bombs may have and probably would have been used on Nazi Germany. Thank heaven that didn't happen but it could have.
Excellent DVD's like this one should make us all appreciate what we have today, despite current happenings in the Middle East and elsewhere. There's a lot of kindness and decency to be seen around us, things that were in short supply 60-70 years ago. In 1940-45, the world stood on the brink of total destruction and we found a way out. Let's hope and believe good will triumph over evil again.

It's OK, but............2006-02-25

The problem is they put in a lot of footage that is NOT of the Third Reich; such as, of Japan, England, America, etc. etc....

It was sort of like they did not have enough real footage, so they threw in a lot of off-topic stuff as filler.

Its OK, but not truely what it pretends to be. As for the on-topic footage it has, it was great.

Worth the money, good addition to any collection........2005-10-14

The color film from the 1930's is of surprisingly good quality and the segments showing life in Germany at this time are quite interesting. An added bonus in the Special Features is a short promotional for Berlin from 1936 - in preparation for the summer Olympics held there that year. Beautiful. War related footage is good and most I had not seen before in 20+ years of collecting color video from WWII. The minus, in my opinion, is the mournful, tragic tone of the British narration and funereal-sounding background music which cycles maddeningly over and over. Subtly insulting to anyone who is knowledgeable about this period in history.

The very rare footage.......2005-09-24

The real treasure of documentary footage. Thanks digital technology for possibility to have it remastered with maximum available quality.

Interesting glimpse into history.......2005-03-27

This film is largely a vignette, in the style of home movies, of scenes in the lives of Germans during the Nazi period. It is a remarkable glimpse into the past. You see an ordinary, generally good natured people doing ordinary things. Yet in the background you see the pervasive organizing principle of the Nazi movement: the swastika is everywhere, the uniforms, the marches, the rallies. You sense the Germans willingly put all their eggs in Hitler's basket and he was the Fuehrer, for better or worse.
I'm grateful for the unguarded candid glimpses into the past. Some are awesome. Some are awful. It's a great movie if you are interested in the period.

Average customer rating:

ANGRY!
buyer beware
Les we forget
bad business
only recieved a partial DVD

Hitler's SS - Portrait in Evil
Starring: John Shea , Bill Nighy , Lucy Gutteridge , David Warner , and Warren Clarke
Director: Jim Goddard
Manufacturer: Westlake Ent. Group
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B00023XHVY
Release Date: 1985-01-01

Description

This Gripping drama portarys the rise of the nazi Regime though the experiences of two ordinary brother who find themselves on opposite side during World War II. Helmut, the brilliant but opportunistic student, and Karl, an idealistic athlete, come of age at the downof Hitler's power in 1931 Berlin.

Customer Reviews:

ANGRY! .......2007-07-17

ok i wish i would have read the reviews before this because i cant stand that it really is mostly cut its not even worth watching DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT FROM HERE

buyer beware.......2007-01-24

I remember this as a good movie when i saw it years ago, but do NOT buy this dvd. It is defective and as others stated, half of the movie is gone. Plus that, the menu would not even work on most dvd players I tried it on.

Les we forget.......2007-01-03

Portrait in evil is the story bout ordinary people in extraordinary times.
Two brothers caught in the web of naziGermany from the time before ww2 through the war and concentrationcamp atrocities.
Like holocaust it depicts people that could have been you or me. It is history and as such it needs to be told again and again.
It is not a masterpiece but it is a welltold.
well worth the money.

bad business.......2006-12-31

what I could see of the movie was very good, problem is only half the movie is on the DVD I am very disappointed and recommend legal steps against the distributor since this is not a single incident!!!

only recieved a partial DVD.......2006-07-13

when i ordered this DVD the disk was defective. the movie started in the middle. i havent contacted anyone yet but be careful when ordering this dvd

The Third Reich In Color Part II: The Sequel

Average customer rating:

Its OK but...
The real treasure of documentary footage
Great pictures

The Third Reich In Color Part II: The Sequel
Director: Micheal Kloft
Manufacturer: International Historic Films, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000TQS84
Release Date: 2002-11-01

Description

This sequel to IHF's acclaimed Third Reich in Color Part 1 features more remarkable color footage, masterfully assembled to provide a sweeping account of Hitler's Germany and World War II. The revelations here include vivid combat sequences from The Spanish Civil War, Invasion of Norway, Operation Barbarossa, Northern Africa, The War in the Pacific, and The Invasion of Normandy. Particularly revealing film sequences from The Wars final chapters: The Wehrmacht in Retreat, Soviet Soldiers in Berlin, Hermann Goering in Allied Captivity, and Soviet Victory Parade in Moscow. Sequences from two UFA color propaganda feature films are also included: "Artillery Strikes" (1940) and "Alert At The Pass" (1943) featuring German Mountain Troops in the Caucasus. These and more are presented uncensored, unrehearsed and with color's startling realism. Germany, 2001, Color, 100 minutes, English commentary

Customer Reviews:

Its OK but..........2006-02-25

Just like the first one, the problem is they put in a lot of footage that is NOT of the Third Reich; such as, of Japan, England, America, etc. etc....

It was sort of like they did not have enough real footage, so they threw in a lot of off-topic stuff as filler.

Its OK, but not truely what it pretends to be. As for the on-topic footage it has, it was great.

The real treasure of documentary footage.......2005-09-24

The second gem! The real treasure of documentary footage. Thanks digital technology for possibility to have it remastered with maximum available quality.

Great pictures.......2004-05-09

This is a nice sequel, with interesting footage. Although, some of the footage is a duplicate of part 1, much of it is unseen before. The color footage of the men heading to the eastern front brings many thoughts of the future hell that will ascend upon them. Anyone interested in the history here, will find that the footage here will bring a realism.

Average customer rating:

Foreign WW2 Drama
The bureaucracy of evil
Massacre in Rome

Massacre in Rome (Remastered Edition)
Starring: Richard Burton , Marcello Mastroianni , Leo McKern , John Steiner , and Anthony Steel
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Manufacturer: Noshame
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000CCD24M
Release Date: 2006-01-31

Amazon.com

Both suspenseful and thoughtful, the 1973 Massacre in Rome is based on tragic events that took place in 1944 as the Nazi war machine was beginning to come to terms with its eventual failure. Richard Burton plays SS Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler, stationed in Rome at the time of a sneak attack on German troops (leaving 32 dead) by Italian partisans. Kappler, both educated and realistic, resists demands by his immediate superior (Leo McKern) and the High Command to retaliate by shooting a multitude of locals, whether or not they had anything to do with the deaths. Kappler, and other Third Reich officers, sees the killing of the 32 as miniscule compared to losses the Germans are enduring every day in a losing battle against the Allies. A severe punishment against Romans, Kappler reasons, would be both petty and shortsighted, heightening Italian anger over the German presence.

But Hitler himself insists, leaving Kappler with the impractical and unpleasant task of finding 320 Italians to kill in cold blood. Meanwhile, a Catholic priest and art restorer (Marcello Mastroianni), whom Kappler both admires and distrusts, is shielding the partisans and exacerbating the conflict Kappler feels between his duty and his civilized self. Produced by Carlo Ponti (The Passenger) and directed by George P. Cosmatos (Tombstone), Massacre In Rome is both an action movie and a drama of great moral complexity, exploring such tricky issues as the Vatican's cooperation with German looting of Italian art and antiquities. A rich score by Ennio Morricone and a second disc full of special features, including old interviews with Cosmatos and Mastroianni, make this a memorable experience. --Tom Keogh

Description

Torn from the pages of history comes the true account of one of the most devastating massacres in the chronicles of modern warfare.

March 1944. With the fortunes of war turning against the Third Reich, Nazi-occupied Rome is a hotbed of dissent from the growing resistance movement. When the Roman underground ambushes a column of SS military police, killing 33, the German High Command orders the execution of 10 Roman citizens for each of its fallen soldiers.

MASSACRE IN ROME unites two of the greatest cinema icons of the 1960s. Marcello Mastroianni (LA DOLCE VITA, 8Â½) stars as Roman priest Pietro Antonelli, ordered by the Pope to collaborate with Nazi Lt. Colonel Herbert Kappler ( Richard Burton, of WHOâ€™S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?), charged by Hitler with the duty of rounding up 330 civilians for execution. Dedicated to pacifism, Antonelli must choose whether to defy the Popeâ€™s orders and aid the resistance or remain true to his vows and watch his countrymen slaughtered by the SS.

This Carlo Ponti production was the second film by director George Pan Cosmatos (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II), and benefits from a tense, searing score from Ennio Morricone.

NoShame Films presents for the first time ever a deluxe 2-DVD edition. MASSACRE IN ROME is a commanding, disturbing historical drama of rebellion, heroism and sacrifice by men and women who loved freedom more than they feared death.

Customer Reviews:

Foreign WW2 Drama.......2006-11-05

Having seen many WW2 films, I thought there would be no novel experiences left in watching yet another film on that subject. However, I was pleasantly surprized upon watching this film.
The setting is German occupied Rome toward the end of the war. The story line evolves around the conflict between resistance forces and the occupation forces. What is unique in this film is the brilliant way suspense is developed, keeping all of us glued to our seats during its showing. The fine acting by both British and Italian stars brought an enhanced sense of reality accentuated by the moral dilema encountered by both military men and clergy. (This in spite of the fact that we had to endure the subtitles)
RS

The bureaucracy of evil.......2006-02-20

Massacre in Rome (aka Rappresaglia) is a surprisingly sober look at the bureaucracy of evil. Focussing on the murder of 335 Italian civilians as reprisal for the killing of 33 SS men, it shows how the moral questions were submerged under the purely practical problems of logistics - where do you find them at such short notice? What if there aren't enough prisoners in jail or Jews in custody to make up the numbers? Where do you carry it out? Where do you dispose of the bodies? Who pulls the trigger? How drunk do you have to get your men to finish the whole operation in 24 hours? Throughout, moral implications and guilt are sidelined by paperwork, not just by the Nazis but also the Vatican, reluctant to get involved and still clinging to the belief that the Nazis are their only defense against the atheist threat of communism. This being an Italian film, however, a fictional composite of those priests who did attempt to avert the atrocity is included to avoid offending the faithful (Marcello Mastroianni's priest meeting his crisis of faith in a similar way to Matthieu Kassovitz's similar character in 'Amen' that can be interpreted as either rejection or vindication of his faith). Ironically, the only voices raised in moderation against the reprisal are Germans, because "We don't want our names read out on the BBC, do we?"

For someone who spent most of his career churning out hackwork, George Pan Cosmatos' direction is more than solid enough to avoid most of the usual international co-production pitfalls, trusting the material and, for the most part, keeping the cast from grandstanding. Richard Burton isn't at his peak as the officer in charge, but considering how bad his other work was during this particularly drunken period, Cosmatos gets a remarkably controlled performance out of him that avoids ham and bluster to good effect. Leo McKern does ham it up (although in fairness the Nazi he plays was even less restrained in real life) but Peter Vaughn and John Steiner more than compensate.

Although it does a good job of portraying the way the Germans dominated their fascist `allies' in the last weeks of the invasion of Italy, the script does occasionally lack historical perspective (the Nazi measures in Rome that partially provoked the partisan attack are barely raised), although NoShame's 2-DVD set does fill in these gaps with substantial interviews with Italian partisans and historians. Marcello Gatti's cinematography is also particularly impressive, with a great use of the strong, deep blacks you never see in movies anymore. The massacre sequence itself is slightly botched: the editing is awkward and the scene too tasteful to evoke much of a response. Instead, the most lasting impression is made by the end credits - a list of those murdered that, even in two columns and rolled by very quickly, takes a full two minutes to pass.

Massacre in Rome.......2005-12-19

The film "Massacre in Rome" is a film that conveys the orchestration of the retaliation plan in regard to the assault of the Italian national partisans against the SS brigade stationed in Rome during the WWII era.

We closely watch the orchestration of that massacre through the intrusive look behind all the closed doors at the SS headquarters, the Police Department of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church.

The director provides us a documentary view as if there was a camera within those headquarters and we are thankfully ridden of any over dramatization that certainly destroys the very essence of political cinema. Simply watch all the reasoning and the agendas followed by the implicated authorities to simple matters (such as the number of people to be executed for every dead SS officer. All of them remain very interesting in respect of understanding diplomatic games and saving face against the opponent as well as to the higher ranks.

This is a political film in the very same tradition of the film "Z" where the dialogues are realistic, the pace is timely increasing and the actors are serving the actual characters' reasoning and do not think for one single minute to ride upon their star status.

Richard Burton and Marcello Mastroianni along with a group of excellent actors entice us in a magnificent piece of historical representation. The film rightfully condemns the executioners along with the authorities whose apathy was just as crucial for the execution of all the innocent Italian prisoners.

The end of the film presents the massacre that may have disappointed many viewers due to the fact that it is compared to the today's graphic depiction of violence in films. One though can rightfully hold a different opinion that is based on the character portrayal that sometimes is perfectly stated on the faces of the executioner and the innocent.

The film credits give a list of all the names of the people killed.

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