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Before The Fall

2004, Movie, NR, 111 mins

Before The Fall: Review

BEFORE THE FALL | NAPOLA | NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN FUHRER
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The homoeroticism inherent in both fascism and movies about life at all-boys boarding schools fuels this unusual look at life among the young Nazi elite. Berlin, 1942. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Friedrich Weimer (Max Riemelt) is just another German teenager with dreams of becoming a professional boxer while working at a factory when he catches the notice of Heinrich Vogler (Devid Striesow), a boxing and German instructor at one of Hitler's National Political Academies, or "Napolas," where tomorrow's Nazi elite are educated and trained. Impressed by Friedrich's skills in the ring, Vogler suggests he apply for a place at a Napola; acceptance into one of these special academies will not only mean a free university education, but a leg-up into the higher echelons of the Reich. Thrilled at the prospects, Friedrich takes the entrance exam, only to find that the examiners are far more interested in the color of his eyes and hair and the proportions of his skull than his boxing prowess; when they finally proclaim Friedrich to be Nordic Class One B and suitable for admission, they can barely contain their excitement. None of this means anything to Friedrich's father (Alexander Held), however, who forbids his son to have anything to do with "these people." Undeterred, Friedrich sneaks away that night, leaving behind a note threatening to report his father's anti-Nazi comments to the authorities if he should try to come after him. After a misstep or two, Friedrich fits right into life in the napola set high in the mountains of Allenstein. There's daily physical and military training, spiffy black uniforms and, of course, classes, where cadets are taught eugenics, Germanic poetry, Hitlerism and historical perspectives on the "Jewish Question." Friedrich is seen as the school's great Aryan hope who will soon win back the boxing championship from the napola in Potsdam, but in the meantime he befriends another cadet, Albrecht Stein (Tom Schilling), the sensitive son of a high ranking party member (Justus von Jaucher). A poet at heart, Albrecht's individualistic spirit, however, couldn't be further from the mass-think of Nazi ideology. After watching his new friend box competitively for the first time, Albrecht his horrified at the extent to which Friedrich has absorbed the school's teachings, which forbid mercy for one's opponent, be it in the boxing ring or on the battlefield. The scales don’t begin fall from Friedrich's own eyes until he notices the brutal treatment of another cadet, Siegfried (Martin Goeres), a chronic bed-wetter who is routinely humiliated in front of his classmates, that is until he performs an act of unthinking selflessness that suddenly transforms him from a weakling into a hero in the eyes of the hypocritical school administration. It's a rare film about military life in Nazi Germany in which the murder of Europe's Jews is never even hinted at, and the sad lesson that Friedrich and Albrecht soon learn — that innocent, unarmed youths are sometimes killed during wartime — seems a drop in the bucket when their fatherland is busy murdering civilians by the millions. In the end, the film is no more an indictment of Hitler's genocidal reign of terror than a general rebuff of any fascistic system that demands subservience, be it Nazi Germany or boarding school. Still, it's a handsomely mounted production that benefits greatly from location shooting and sharp attention to historical detail. All the paraphernalia so important to the image of the Reich, particularly the uniforms, are painstakingly rendered, bringing a heightened sense of realism to what might otherwise have been a romantic coming-of-age tale. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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