Radical Evil (2013) User Reviews

Solid documentary that still offers to bring something new to a topic that has been done many times before

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 2 August 2019]

"Das radikal Böse" or "Radical Evil" is a German documentary from 2013, well actually a German/Austrian that is in the German language, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year and the writer and director is Stefan Ruzowitzky, who is of course still known mostly for his work on Die Fälscher that won his country the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Feature. Looking at the subject there, it does not seem too surprising that here for once when he dug into documentary territory he also came up with a movie that focused on World War II and the Nazi regime. And as the title already tells you, this one is not about the good guys who saved hundreds of life or about the victims really who lived and died in concentration camps, but the focus is on the really dark, evil and sinister aspect, not in the sense of those politiciand who were in control of it all, but really about these Nazi soldiers who performed all the killings. There is of course the eternal question why people did it, why they did not stand up (could they even?) and refused those gruesome deeds and to what extent they can really be made responsible for it or if they were only following orders and if they didn't, then they actually lost their careers, maybe even their own lives. But lets not get too deep into questions of moral now in my review. It is partially what the film is about, but also not at its core. Instead it is much more about what actually was done by whom and what the exact scenario was like. It feels like a really scientific film. Obviously, you can never leave emotions out of a subject like this, but really Ruzowitzky never tried too much here to tough the viewer, but instead shed a light on what happened and have him with more on his mind leave the theater, not with tears on his face. For that he got many interviewees, mostly lawyers, historians and writers who are really competent on the subject, moch more those than actual contemporary witnesses of what happened. But that is no surprise, the victims, here espesically with what the film is about, are dead and the soldiers most likely were too by 2013 and if they weren't they would not talk it in front of a camera, even in the unlikely event that they were discovered (and convicted). It is an insightful slightly over 1.5 hours. Probably the fact that I am anyway pretty interested in the subject helped in my specific case, so my positive recommendation overall is also somewhat subjective, but yeah there is nothing really wrong with this documentary at all. Nothing specific to criticize and I actually think it is quite an achievement that they managed to beirng new things to the table here with the uncountable amount of documentaries that have been made on the whole subject, already alone if we think of everything zdf history did. I have seen many of them, obviously not all, but I learnt something new from this one we have here and that is always a success for sure. I am also not surprised at all with Ruzowitzky being a big name somhow that he got many really famous German actors to do the voice work here. If you know at least a bit about German cinema, then the names Fürmann, Krebitz, Fehling, Striesow and maybe 2-3 others will not be new to you at all. So yeah, if you still care about 19th century politics in Europe, then you should go for this one. It's worth it. Thumbs up!