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Reviews
Edge of the World (2021)
Low budget but not as bad as claimed
There are a few things to fault about this low-budget historical film. The script isn't remarkable, it could have done without the brooding voiceovers that periodically explain Brooke's feelings about his experiences, and the pacing is a bit weird. The writers and the director didn't permit much breathing room in which to show the story, rather than simply tell it to you good and clear.
Also, cannonballs usually don't set stones on fire and you probably can't put a cannon weighing one tonne into the bow of a canoe that has two people in it, and still expect the canoe to function as a canoe.
However, I don't see why this got a 5.4 rating. Maybe people are getting upset over political or religious qualms, but the film held my attention in spite of its flaws, and neither the dialogue writing nor the cinematography dipped below a 6.5, in my view.
I agree with other reviewers who have commented that Rhys Meyers fails to muster the depth necessary for Brooke's character, but I think he lacked direction. Some key production personnel seem to have phoned it in.
Nazijäger - Reise in die Finsternis (2022)
Among the most effective Holocaust films
This film suffers from a bad English-language title and a description that misdirects, as Freud's role in the film ultimately comes across as minor, being little more than a vehicle for telling the story of twenty Jewish children murdered as part of Nazi medical experiments. Arguably there was a missed opportunity here to actually tell Freud's story, but the film more than makes up for this in how it goes about reconstructing the stories of the children.
The power of the film comes in large part from its unusual blending of dramatic and documentary elements. At times this is jarring. But the closing scenes in which two elderly Holocaust survivors meet with the child actors who play themselves and their murdered childhood friend Sergio, is among the strangest and most poignant moments I've experienced in a documentary film.
The world is losing connection with this horrifying chapter in our shared history, we are taking the causes of stability and order for granted, and we're playing chicken with renewed world war and genocide. This film succeeds better than most at making a tangible bridge to the past, reminding us of what we risk losing through the corrosion of legal institutions and medical ethics, and of how bad things can get when the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.