Hannah Arendt (FILM REVIEW)
Hannah
Arendt
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Intriguing Biopic Revisits Curious Career of Self-Hating Jewish Philosopher
I’m not sure whether there’s a term
for the Jewish equivalent of an Uncle Tom but, if there is, it would probably be
applicable to Hannah Arendt (Barbara Sukowa). Born in Germany in 1906, Hannah
studied philosophy at the University of Marburg, where she became both the
protégé and the mistress of Professor Martin Heiddegger (Klaus Pohl), “the
greatest love of her life,” a Nazi who went to his grave without ever apologizing
for his support of Hitler.
In
response to the rise of anti-Semitism across Deutschland, Arendt fled first to France in search of sanctuary, and later escaped
to the United States
with her mother and husband, Heinrich (Axel Milberg), on illegal visas secured
from an American diplomat. She became a citizen in 1950 and subsequently made
history as the first female lecturer at Princeton University.
However, as Shakespeare suggested in
Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them: The good is oft interred
in their bones.” Such is apparently the case with women, too, as Hannah appears
fated to be forever remembered for a series of articles she wrote for the New
Yorker magazine while covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Like one of those weirdoes who falls
for an inmate, she inexplicably sided with Eichmann, the architect of the
Holocaust, buying hook, line and sinker his “I only followed orders” defense.
Her coverage created a huge uproar as soon as it started hitting the news
stands.
This is understandable because
instead of calling Eichmann a monster, she merely referred to him as “a clown,
a foolish little servant of Hitler who didn’t have a mind of his own.” The
blowback from this “banality of evil” theory was deservedly severe since Hannah
simultaneously had the temerity to indict Jewish leaders for supposedly cooperating
with the Nazis.
A fascinating character study of an
arrogant, cold-hearted, self-hating Jew who had the nerve to blame 6,000,000 of
her own people for their extermination in concentration camps.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
In English, French,
Hebrew, Latin and German with subtitles
Running time: 113 minutes
Distributor:
Zeitgeist Films
To see a trailer for Hannah
Arendt, visit:
2 comments:
You obviously haven't read a word of Eichmann in Jerusalem. It would be a funny way of siding with someone to proclaim yourself in favor of his execution, don't you think? She merely said that he wasn't the mastermind of the Holocaust that the prosecution tried to paint him as; he obeyed criminal orders because he had lost his conscience, but he didn't make policy himself as he was accused of doing.
As for her accusing 6 million Jews of complicity in their own murders, that's absurd too. She said, and correctly, that many Jewish leaders collaborated with the Nazis long after it was clear just where such collaboration led. She did not blame all leaders, and certainly not all Jews.
It speaks to the quality and complexity of von Trotta's film that a reviewer who missed its point entirely was nonetheless able to appreciate the work just as much as those of us who understood what was going on. Excellent film!
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