Comments on: Friday Afternoon Movie: Conspiracy http://coilhouse.net/2009/10/friday-afternoon-movie-conspiracy/ Coilhouse Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:27:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Tequila http://coilhouse.net/2009/10/friday-afternoon-movie-conspiracy/comment-page-1/#comment-23209 Tequila Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:48:39 +0000 http://coilhouse.net/?p=10751#comment-23209 I've had to write about the The Wannsee Conference over the years and was surprised in the middle of doing a small article on it HBO announced this film. I was impressed with how well the drama was handled thanks to the knock out cast assembled. I was expecting a much more over the top "Oh look at us being evil!" version of the story but they got the measured emotion and frustration of certain participants really well. While the facts vs. fiction of the conference came to light long after the war and Mark Roesman's book on the subject remains the best current account it remains endless fascinating. It's worth reading the The Einzatsgruppen reports in relation to the conference because you start to see just how many cogs it took to build the horrid machine to follow. I don't find the film misleading at all. I think in the title makes one think of X-Files or insane internet conspiracy theory websites where you expect to hear the evil guys talk about evil plans in a very point A to point B kinda way. One would hope people walk away from either watching or reading about all this with a clearer picture of just how such a government not only constructed the holocaust but how disturbing this kind of bureaucratic nightmare really was. More so that some of the men attending lived long past the war with no real price paid for the participation. In many ways this is a much scarier film (though I prefer the original) then other more heavy handed approaches on the subject. As solid as the performances are Colin Firth's is the one I enjoyed the most. He nailed the frustrations many of the more legally minded had with the rise of the SS. You can see the slow realization that the letter of the law and all that went with it would soon be a formality with no real weight or purpose. He also ends up having some of the most disturbing lines in the film especially those related to how justifiable this would all be if done "legally". My interpretation of why Heydrich called the meeting was less to do with spreading the blame and more to do with making sure key officials and ministers knew who was really in charge of the day to day operations of the war at that stage. At that point in the war Heydrich was already being groomed for the post war years and had he not been assassinated was scheduled to take over command of occupied France (one can only imagine the hell he'd have brought to it...) Defeat wasn't in the cards at this point. Heydrich like others knew the key issue the German war machine had was communication. Many branches were so consumed by infighting that key R&D, intelligence, and simple day to day military reports were not being shared or even given to those who needed them the most. If anything this conference probably would have been a much more regular affair had Heydrich lived and much of those ministries consolidated under the SS. I’ve had to write about the The Wannsee Conference over the years and was surprised in the middle of doing a small article on it HBO announced this film. I was impressed with how well the drama was handled thanks to the knock out cast assembled. I was expecting a much more over the top “Oh look at us being evil!” version of the story but they got the measured emotion and frustration of certain participants really well. While the facts vs. fiction of the conference came to light long after the war and Mark Roesman’s book on the subject remains the best current account it remains endless fascinating. It’s worth reading the The Einzatsgruppen reports in relation to the conference because you start to see just how many cogs it took to build the horrid machine to follow.

I don’t find the film misleading at all. I think in the title makes one think of X-Files or insane internet conspiracy theory websites where you expect to hear the evil guys talk about evil plans in a very point A to point B kinda way. One would hope people walk away from either watching or reading about all this with a clearer picture of just how such a government not only constructed the holocaust but how disturbing this kind of bureaucratic nightmare really was. More so that some of the men attending lived long past the war with no real price paid for the participation. In many ways this is a much scarier film (though I prefer the original) then other more heavy handed approaches on the subject.

As solid as the performances are Colin Firth’s is the one I enjoyed the most. He nailed the frustrations many of the more legally minded had with the rise of the SS. You can see the slow realization that the letter of the law and all that went with it would soon be a formality with no real weight or purpose. He also ends up having some of the most disturbing lines in the film especially those related to how justifiable this would all be if done “legally”.

My interpretation of why Heydrich called the meeting was less to do with spreading the blame and more to do with making sure key officials and ministers knew who was really in charge of the day to day operations of the war at that stage. At that point in the war Heydrich was already being groomed for the post war years and had he not been assassinated was scheduled to take over command of occupied France (one can only imagine the hell he’d have brought to it…) Defeat wasn’t in the cards at this point. Heydrich like others knew the key issue the German war machine had was communication. Many branches were so consumed by infighting that key R&D, intelligence, and simple day to day military reports were not being shared or even given to those who needed them the most. If anything this conference probably would have been a much more regular affair had Heydrich lived and much of those ministries consolidated under the SS.

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