THE NINTH DAY (Der Neunte tag)

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Kino Interntional
Grade: B+
Directed by: Volker Schlondorff
Written by: Eberhard Gorner, Andreas Pfluger, from Rev. Jean
Bernard's prison diaries
Cast: Ulrich Matthes, August Diehl, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana
Beglau, Germain Wagner, Jean-Paul Raths
Screened at: Quad Cinema, NYC, 5/29/05

Actors good and bad will tell you almost to a person that they
prefer playing villains to heroes. More often than not, the best,
most ironic dialogue is placed in the mouths of the bad guys,
the heroes emerging only thanks to the malefactions of the
evildoers. The fine German actor Ulrich Matthes has performed
in both types of roles and may prefer the job of hero simply
because this time, that's the meatier job. In Oliver
Hirschbiegel's astonishing film "Downfall" ("Der Untergang"),
Matthes took on the job of Hitler's Minister of Propaganda,
Joseph Goebbels, who came across more frightening than the
defeated fuhrer himself, matched for evil only by Goebbels's
wife–who for insane reasons poisoned all her children and the
family dog as the Soviet troops were heading toward the
bunker.

This time, he inhabits the screen as Rev. Henri Kremer, a priest
whose button-like eyes and cadaver-thin body make him well-
suited for the role of an inmate in the Dachau concentration
camp in 1942. He resides with an unhappy band of Roman
Catholic priests who have been accused of performing activities
for the Resistance. His tale is based on the true experience of
Father Jean Bernard, whose diary ticked off the nine fateful
days of the movie's title.

Using the razor-sharp script of Eberhard Gorner and Andreas
Pfluger, the famed German director Volker Schlondorff re-
enacts an ethical quandary faced by the hawk-eyed priest.
Suddenly given a nine-day leave from the camp to return to his
home country of Luxembourg, he is told by the Gestapo, a
handsome, cultured but pressured Unterstrumfuhrer Bebhardt
(August Diehl) that he must convince the Bishop of Luxembourg
to announce to his people that National Socialism is the greatest
things since packaged white bread to happen to his people. If
he refuses the assignment or does not succeed, the priest's
family, particularly his pregnant sister, will be hauled off to
Dachau and all the priests currently interred would be killed. The
bishop has heroically held out from anything resembling a cave-
in to the evil forces of Nazism: he rings the church bell regularly
and has not stepped out of his cathedral since the German take-
over, nor will he even grant an audience to the reverend. This is
indeed an ethical dilemma, but one which Kremer cannot really
win, nor has he any wish to escape to Switzerland as his sister
suggests.

While the two personalities in conflict execute their roles
flawlessly, this is a dialogue-driven story, an exercise in the
philosophic points of view which on the surface seem
diametrically opposed. Yet thanks to the fine screenplay, the
SS officer is a complex figure, a deacon who had joined the
Nazi party just two days after he was scheduled to be ordained
as a priest himself. The most trenchant argument comes from
the SS guy's lips in which he announces that he almost wrote a
dissertation on the Biblical Judas who, he said, was one of
history's great heroes in that his betrayal of Jesus led to the
crucifixion that redeemed humankind's sins.

The 65-year-old director, Volker Schlondorff, has knocked out a
film with the didacticism of his "The Handmaid's Tale," mirroring
his "Circle of Deceit," which considers loyalty and betrayal in
war-torn Beirut. His most powerful work is his 1979 adaptation
of the Gunter Grass novel "The Tin Drum," an allegorical story
of a three-year-old Oskar who stops growing physically as the
Nazis take power in Germany. By contrast, "The Ninth Day" is
as realistic as "The Tin Drum" is fantasy, though despite the
current film's grounding in the literal world stands as a film that
can be ignored only by the rednecks who believe that we've
seen quite enough of movies about the Holocaust.

Not Rated. 90 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com