SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS (Die letzten Tage)

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Zeitgeist Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Marc Rothemund
Written by: Fred Breinersdorfer
Cast: Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Gerald Alexander Held,
Johanna Gastdorf
Screened on DVD

One of President Bush’s key slogans about the Iraqi insurgents and about al-Queda in general is “They hate freedom.” That’s a remark that’s stunning in its naivete. If you want to look at a society that really “hates freedom” through the ages, there are too many to name here, but Nazi Germany 1933-1945 would be a prominent example. Many German citizens at the time were enthusiastic about Hitler and National Socialist ideology, believing that anyone that demeaned the leadership should be severely punished. While Anne Frank, a Dutch girl, is an icon of the suffering of the Jewish people in occupied Europe, Sophie Scholl’s activities, her arrest and her execution has made her a symbol of resistance within Germany. What is particularly praiseworthy of this twenty-one year old student is that she was Protestant. In her defense before the Gestapo, she indicated that she abhorred anti-Semitic policies of the German government. Uppermost in her mind, though, was her belief that after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, when the German soldiers on the Eastern front were pushed back, the country suffered a defeat that would lead two years later to surrender. One could argue that anti-war activities in the U.S. today are growing, with protesters increasing in size not so much because they do not believe the U.S. belongs in a country that is not responsible for 9/11, but because they think the U.S. campaign in Iraq appears to be turning into a rout.

The title character in director Marc Rothemund’s and scripter’s gripping dramatization of the role of one young woman, Freulein Scholl, is a headstrong university student who, together with her brother and a friend were the nucleus of the so-called White Rose. The organization planned mailings and personal deliveries of pamphlets calling on Germany to end the war before thousands of additional troops were killed or maimed. Ruthemund’s work does not take us into the battle scene; in fact not a single bullet is fired in the almost two-hour presentation. Instead, we are exposed to a dialogue-driven character analysis, honing in mainly on two people of opposite ideologies. One is Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch); the other is a criminologist, Robert Mohr (Gerald Alexander Held). The principal scene of the film finds Scholl and Mohr in the latter’s office, with the Nazi bigwig pushing for a confession from Scholl about her activities in distributing antiwar pamphlets around a Munich university and other locales. Mohr is a high-level official within the Nazi government who casually smokes while starting at the accused, trying to see an aspect of her that is not defined by what she says. He has a soft spot in his hardened heart because he has a son about Sophie’s age and can probably understand how a woman who has just reached her legal majority is naive, impressed by her own viewpoints, and unaware of the risks involved in disseminating the agitprop literature.

“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” allows us into the final six days of Scholl’s life from the time of her arrest in February 1943 to her execution by guillotine for treason and for denigrating the life-threatening activities of the German military, particularly those in the Eastern Front fighting against the Soviet Union. After insisting on her insistence and stating that she was apolitical despite claims that she distributed incendiary pamphlets in one building of the university, she ultimately confesses. “I am responsible and I’m proud of it.” These are fighting words that make one wonder whether Scholl at the time realized that she was fighting for her life. She explains to Mohr that she is as concerned primarily for the soldiers whose lives would be taken by the tens of thousands. As Mohr listens, his stern demeanor turns softer as he begins to understand Sophie’s motivation while at the same time committed to doing his job as prosecutor.

“Sophie Scholl,” which takes us from Scholl’s distribution of the pamphlets together with her brother, Hans (Fabian Hinriche) is sincere and heartfelt, providing us with a Gestapo agent who is not a cardboard copy of a raving Nazi apparatchik but a human being who is conflicted about his role in sending the young woman to the guillotine. Julia Jentsch and Fabian Hinrichs are so riveting during the pre-trial questioning that one doesn’t care at all that almost all the action occurs within buildings. The swastika and Nazi emblems are at a minimum, perhaps a deliberate attempt by the film-makers to show that what occurred in Munich could happen almost anywhere.

Not Rated. 117 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online