Sophie Scholl - last days

The film

Summary

It recalls the last 6 days of the life of the young coed, from February 17th to 23rd 1943, since the launching of leaflets in the hall of the university of Munich, its arrest, its interrogation until its execution. The realizer launches us the challenge to ask us how we would have reacted to the place of these students. Sophie Scholl , it, maintains its convictions until the end, but prevents as much as it can involve her companions with it towards a sad destiny. It remains worthy and posed vis-a-vis its indicters, which all the more returns it moving.

Comments

A sharp spirit of freethinking

If the official reports from which base film were accurately retranscribed, the exemplarity of the answers and the convictions of Sophie Scholl made of it true a heroin of the resistance of the German people plunged in oppression Nazi and the lies of its propaganda. Condemned to the Capital punishment at the 21 years age, it advances remarks of an extraordinary acuity concerning the importance of the Conscience vis-a-vis the acts which are requested from the Germans in the turning of All-out war that the war takes, whereas the year 1943 fact of appearing the head office of Stalingrad. The analysis of Alliés system of operation set up in the Nazi Germany revealed that the various speakers of the machine of the Holocauste acted by carrying out orders with a bureaucratic rigor, putting side all moral consideration or awakening in front of their acts. The perspicacity from the points of view of Sophie Scholl on the ruin towards which the mode will carry out the nation on the international scene is exceptional whereas the civil population is summoned with silence under the pressure of the concerned with safety units of the oppressive mode Nazi; the only posture held by the critical intellectuals vis-a-vis the rise of the mode was, jusqu the following the example of of Sophie Scholl and her companions of the Rose Blanche, the Fuite.

Protagonists of the drama

Distribution:

Julia Jentsch : Sophie Scholl
Fabian Hinrichs: Hans Scholl
Alexander Held: Robert Mohr, the investigator of the police force of State
Johanna Gastdorf: Else Gebel, the communist confidante
. : the lawyer of “defense”
Andre Hennicke: Roland Freisler, “judge” at the time of the lawsuit

The protagonists of this history are fundamental to emphasize the radical standpoint to which Sophie Scholl during the evolution of the investigation and the committal for trial is brought.

Sophie and Hans have a very strong fraternal relation which is added again to the motivation of their engagement citizen: their goal is to alert their compatriots of the dreams of the mode. As of the arrest, the two suspects are kept away by the secrecy of the instruction. The point of view thus concentrates on the vision of Sophie, and underlines her state of loneliness vis-a-vis the bureaucratic mechanics of which it is the object. The captive Communist who accommodates it in the jails of the central police station is the character which, by his conversations with Sophie, enables him to reveal the tragic direction of its human condition, by his aspirations of love life. In parallel, the scenes of discussion with the investigator Robert Mohr are the ground of a confrontation which flashes back on the direction of the History which makes debate in the German Historiographie current: Sophie Scholl and Robert Mohr confront from the points of view on the right, the national direction of engagement and morals; these points of view synthesize all the ditch which grew hollow enters, for one, democratic Germany of Après-guerre éprise of pacifism and personal blooming, and for the other, the situation of Germany of the Twenties whose present of film is the consequence, and rejects all Défaitisme which would carry out to consider the occupation of its country by a foreign supervision. The concentration of the capacities carried out since the accession with the capacity of the Nazis (to read Gleichschaltung, 1933) provides the context preliminary to this radical divergence between two compatriots such as the film shows it: this investigator of the police force doing his work in a professional way, without point least fastening in favor with the fascistic ideology (than one finds undoubtedly in the contracted attitude of the underling who supervises displacements of Sophie, like in that of the judge Nazi). Their exchanges, independent of the influence of the capacity in place, are thus illustrative evolution of the thought of the people before and after the conflict. Sophie is modern because it develops in film all the tenure of the rejection of compromisings which made sink Germany in Fascism.

The exit of this work of cinema after the Fall thus forms part of the current debate dépassionné concerning the national Récit: a glance believed on the individuals vis-a-vis being able it and their remissions when tyranny occurs, letting single the example of a young coed hold the torch, hold by its enthusiasm and its education with the principles, and pay its life the price of its convictions. The hour is not any more with the denunciation of the sadistic torturers shown of the finger in films of the Sixties like the incarnation of the Evil, but with the examination of the postures of each one in front of the iniquitous caratère of the autocratic mode.

Tragic and psychological dimension

The drama is woven by l'" réalité" effect; obtained by the subjective vision which is offered to the spectator: beginning with the outcome, it follows the steps of Sophie Scholl and the evolution of its thought during this abrupt enfermement.

It is thus a reflection on individual courage vis-a-vis alienation. The outside world seen by Sophie before her disappearance is a parabola of the Grande Germany in these black hours: a vast administrative prison.

This focusing on the female character apparently accompanied in the scenario of the effects dramatizing the role: with the reading of the article on his brother Hans Scholl, it seems that it is him which pronounced the sentence with the address of the court “In some time, it is you who will be in our place” at the time of the pronunciation of the judgment. In film, this clear-sighted counterpart is reserved for the character of Sophie.

One can thus wonder about the representation that this film gives, which however does not withdraw anything with pragmatism and clearness of its analysis on the chances that the country has, engaged in the conflict vis-a-vis the allied powers.

The legal apparatus under the Nazism

In a more general way, the film also shows the court system of a Western country such as the Totalitarisme canted it, since the resistant ones are the subject of a lawsuit for high treason by their intrigues which raise of the principle of the Freedom of expression that the fascists choked: defense counsels and civil part are with the orders in front of the inquisitorial figure of a judge, Roland Freisler, which applies the doctrines of the mode in a brutality aiming at making an example for the remainder of the population. The institutions were phagocytées by the party, and the public lawsuit does not have as assistance that uniforms gained with the cause. The three condemned of the Rose Blanche were carried out immediately, without respect of the 99 days deadline envisaged by the Fundamental law. Plunged in an ideological war against an external enemy, the mode was afraid of the collapse of the interior face by a popular rising such as the disorders which the country knew the year 1918.

For the facts of 1943, to see the detailed article : the lawsuit of the White Rose.

See too

References

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