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INHERITANCE

Today's film was the documentary

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suss (2009)

A famous German director, Piet Harlan, made an anti-semitic propaganda film, “Jud Süss,” 1940

It was made for Goebbels and was shown to as many members of the military and citizens as possible.

Harlan was tried and acquitted after the war for his support of the holocaust but the stain on the family name endures.

This film is about the family and its reactions. Sons, daughters and grandchildren talk about their inheritance.

One son, Thomas, wages a life campaign against his father. Siblings disagree. Others have dealt with the guilt, if any, and now are philosophic.

This is less a documentary about a propaganda film and a Nazi collaborator than a chronicle of a family who, 70 years later still bears the burden.

We see a lot of the original film but not too much. We see a lot of press coverage and family films. It is rather interesting. But not consequential.

Complicity and its wages are always the problem of other people. Not me.

I liked the film although I got a bit sleepy here and there. It could do with a good 20 minute cut.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films