The following is extracted from Wikipedia's paper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Rost) on the origins of this movie and the book which inspired it:
(Quote)
"Cornelius Rost(born 27 March 1919 in Kufstein, Austria; died 18 October 1983 in Munich, Germany) was a German World War II soldier who claimed to have escaped from a Soviet Gulag camp in Siberia. The experiences he described were the basis for a book, a television series and a film.
He was living in Munich when World War II broke out, and during the war he was captured by the Russian Army. By his own admission made in 1942, he held the rank of private, although Clemens Forell, his alias in his novel, was depicted as a Wehrmacht officer. According to the Munich registration office, Rost returned from war imprisonment in Russia on 28 October 1947. In 1953 he started working in the in-house printing division of the Franz Ehrenwirth publishing house in Munich. He ruined numerous book covers because he had been made color blind in Russia's lead mines, where he was forced to work during his imprisonment. Ehrenwirth sought an explanation for this and thus learned about Rost's war experiences. Sensing a good story, Ehrenwirth asked Rost to write down his recollections. Rost's script was of very poor quality, but Ehrenwirth was keen on the story and hired professional writer Josef Martin Bauer to get the material into shape.
Comprehensive researches, condensed in 2010 into a three-hour radio feature by radio journalist Arthur Dittlmann for the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting Company), left serious doubts about the authenticity of the events told in Rost's original story. For example, no prisoner of war camp existed at Cape Dezhnev in the Far East of Siberia at the time claimed in the book; Rost was not a Wehrmacht officer as depicted in the story; the German Red Cross, with headquarters in Munich, never received any inquiry about his whereabouts, which is unusual for a ten-year imprisonment; and Rost had been released from a Russian prisoner of war camp on 28 October 1947, about two years before his alleged escape in 1949-1952, which he therefore could not have accomplished.
It is suspected that his story consists only partly of real experiences, and partly of hearsay and knowledge possibly acquired by reading. Among other errors, the main street in Moscow, along which he and his captured comrades were driven at the beginning of the novel, was named by Rost as Nevsky Prospekt, which is actually located in Saint Petersburg. Bauer, as the author of the book, is now blamed for not having critically cross-checked the most unreliable details in Rost's story."
(unquote)
I quote this paper because it is a shame that for so many years someone could have deceived the public with what is obviously a way to try to amend oneself of having been part of a country which at the time of the Nazi regime was monstrous. Of course we all know that all the Germans did not sustain it, many fled their country, others chose by fear to shut their eyes to what was happening. But as the main character of the movie "Downfall", Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, says at the beginning "to be young is not an excuse". Rost was not obliged to invent such an escape to justify the fact that he was obliged to go to war unless to be considered a deserter.
The great error in this movie is not to state very precisely at its beginning that there are events there that are not all credible even in 2001 when the movie was realized and before the debate which took place in 2010.
We know of course that there has been unbelievable acts of courage and or feats during the war, incredible and successful attempts of evasion (many movies have been based on these), but here the accumulation of feats reaches such a level that it is totally impossible for a man to achieve them. Moreover as stated in the paper above, the author of the book lied deliberately on the dates of his liberation which was not an escape so.
This being said , the movie is superb on all counts. Great acting, Bernhard Bettermann makes a great impersonation of Forell, the three little girls who play the role of his daughter are great especially the first one very moving in the scene in the railway station. Anatoliy Kotenyov in the role of Kamenev is also great in this sadistic role. The sets and the photography as well as the music is also very good.
There are some goofs mentioned here and as Wikipedia again states it a major one:
"In a scene of Forell's meeting with the Iranian police chief in the latter's office, there are a number of mismatches between what is shown and the situation prevailing in Iran prior to 1979 revolution. The police chief is shown bearded and is wearing an olive green uniform, while the face of the Iranian military personnel used to be clean-shaven and the police uniform was dark blue at the time. In addition, a picture of Dome of the Rock was hanging on the wall, while at that time the Iranian regime was not a supporter of the Palestinian cause. On the contrary, at the time hanging a picture of the Iranian king (the Shah) was obligatory in all government offices, which is not the case in the film."
Of course a majority of the viewers will not notice them unless they are professional historians or politicians.
All in all this is a very good movie, worth seeing but with in the back of the viewer's mind that it is for a majority of it pure fiction.
5 out of 7 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
