Safe-Keeper
11-15-06, 05:31 PM
I bought and watched this movie yesterday, and it made an even bigger impression on me than Der Untergang (The Downfall), which takes a good deal.
The Final Days details the arrest and subsequent trial and execution of Sophie Scholl, a German activist who turned from devoted Nazism to resistance, spreading anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets for a year with her and her brother's organization, Weisse Rose (White Rose), before her capture by the Gestapo.
The movie starts with Sophie Scholl listening to music with a female friend (girlfriend?), and moves on to the planning of a leaflet drop at the city's university. It goes on to show us the capture of Sophie and her brother, and from there on it's interrogation, despair, trial, and - finally - the execution by guillotine. The movie follows Sophie from beginning to end, meaning that the questions she asks herself - what'll happen to my comrades, my family, what do the Nazis know, have they searched our appartment, have they found anything to use against us - remain unanswered to us for as long as they remain unanswered to them.
The things I remember is how Sophie and her brother so strongly defended their beliefs verbally until the very end; how she said she'd do the same thing again, given the chance; and how the Allies got ahold of one of the leaflets, printed millions of copies, and dropped them by plane over the city of Münich. A brilliant and moving tribute to Sophie Scholl (regardless of whether or not the British intended it to be;)).
The movie had such an impact on me that it's scary, especially the way you know from the beginning that this incredibly brave, friendly young girl is going to be executed in the end. I repeatedly found myself wanting to reach through the monitor screen and hug her. There were scenes where I so loathed the people in the movie that I wanted to go back in time and punch them. This isn't the friendly, Hitler-hating crew of U-96, who spent their time speaking ill of Göring and tormenting the Nazi correspondent - the German officials in The Final Days belong to the evil portion of the German politics-and-war machinery.
I fail to see any wrongs with this movie. It's simply such a splendid master-piece of a film that it'll haunt you for all eternity, along with the memory of a brave, idealistic, and, tragically, reckless young German girl who managed to see the error in her Nazi beliefs and choose the right ideal to pursue. My heart sunk when I saw them make their escape from the university for then to hear Sophie say, "I've still got some leaflets left in my briefcase". If only she hadn't turned back...
In Admiring Memory
of the White Rose Resistance Movement
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Scholl-Denkmal%2C_M%C3%BCnchen.jpg
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
The Final Days details the arrest and subsequent trial and execution of Sophie Scholl, a German activist who turned from devoted Nazism to resistance, spreading anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets for a year with her and her brother's organization, Weisse Rose (White Rose), before her capture by the Gestapo.
The movie starts with Sophie Scholl listening to music with a female friend (girlfriend?), and moves on to the planning of a leaflet drop at the city's university. It goes on to show us the capture of Sophie and her brother, and from there on it's interrogation, despair, trial, and - finally - the execution by guillotine. The movie follows Sophie from beginning to end, meaning that the questions she asks herself - what'll happen to my comrades, my family, what do the Nazis know, have they searched our appartment, have they found anything to use against us - remain unanswered to us for as long as they remain unanswered to them.
The things I remember is how Sophie and her brother so strongly defended their beliefs verbally until the very end; how she said she'd do the same thing again, given the chance; and how the Allies got ahold of one of the leaflets, printed millions of copies, and dropped them by plane over the city of Münich. A brilliant and moving tribute to Sophie Scholl (regardless of whether or not the British intended it to be;)).
The movie had such an impact on me that it's scary, especially the way you know from the beginning that this incredibly brave, friendly young girl is going to be executed in the end. I repeatedly found myself wanting to reach through the monitor screen and hug her. There were scenes where I so loathed the people in the movie that I wanted to go back in time and punch them. This isn't the friendly, Hitler-hating crew of U-96, who spent their time speaking ill of Göring and tormenting the Nazi correspondent - the German officials in The Final Days belong to the evil portion of the German politics-and-war machinery.
I fail to see any wrongs with this movie. It's simply such a splendid master-piece of a film that it'll haunt you for all eternity, along with the memory of a brave, idealistic, and, tragically, reckless young German girl who managed to see the error in her Nazi beliefs and choose the right ideal to pursue. My heart sunk when I saw them make their escape from the university for then to hear Sophie say, "I've still got some leaflets left in my briefcase". If only she hadn't turned back...
In Admiring Memory
of the White Rose Resistance Movement
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Scholl-Denkmal%2C_M%C3%BCnchen.jpg
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia