Friday, 13 January 2012
The first thought I had as I sat down to watch The Debt (the original version) was-why does Hollywood Remake EVERYTHING? Look, to be fair I really want to see the Hollywood version of The Debt because I love Helen Mirren, among other reasons, but I wonder about the rationale behind remaking movies that have basically just been released in other countries (see: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Do they think that American/English speaking audiences won't sit through a subtitled film? Or that they can do a better job? I suspect it is more or less money but it irks me somehow. I’m not trying to sound like a hipster in a I-saw-it-first-way but especially when these films are already being marketed to American audiences in their original language isn’t it a bit redundant to make and market the same film to the same audience, as is the case with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ? Anyway, The Debt is a great film, if a bit uncomfortable to sit through.
Three Mossad agents are sent to Berlin in the 1960’s to capture a Nazi war criminal, the Surgeon of Birkenau. When he escapes they return to Israel claiming they killed him and are hailed as heroes. However, it’s 30 some years later and a man in a nursing home in Ukraine is claiming to be the Surgeon and they must return to finish what they started,and to keep their story in tact.The Holocaust is something which fascinates and horrifies us. Decades later we are still pondering how it could happen, and as the character of the Surgeon says-they did it because they could, something which makes it somehow more disturbing. On that note, it’s hard to say that you enjoy a film dealing with such heavy handed material-and I don’t know that I did enjoy this film. It plods along in a most un-sensational way, switching from past to present from language to language without any bombast and when the Surgeon of Birkenau is finally done away with it doesn't seem as much a relief as when a wounded Rachel, falls down, presumably dying, in the final scene. The weight of both the holocaust and their hiding of the truth bears down on the three main characters. In the end they cannot escape it, and similarily it is hard to escape this film.Making a film about such matieral always has to be done carefully and The Debt ceraintly does it well. It's intense and important and I recommend this film, it's as fitting as ever and as significant as ever.
Three Mossad agents are sent to Berlin in the 1960’s to capture a Nazi war criminal, the Surgeon of Birkenau. When he escapes they return to Israel claiming they killed him and are hailed as heroes. However, it’s 30 some years later and a man in a nursing home in Ukraine is claiming to be the Surgeon and they must return to finish what they started,and to keep their story in tact.The Holocaust is something which fascinates and horrifies us. Decades later we are still pondering how it could happen, and as the character of the Surgeon says-they did it because they could, something which makes it somehow more disturbing. On that note, it’s hard to say that you enjoy a film dealing with such heavy handed material-and I don’t know that I did enjoy this film. It plods along in a most un-sensational way, switching from past to present from language to language without any bombast and when the Surgeon of Birkenau is finally done away with it doesn't seem as much a relief as when a wounded Rachel, falls down, presumably dying, in the final scene. The weight of both the holocaust and their hiding of the truth bears down on the three main characters. In the end they cannot escape it, and similarily it is hard to escape this film.Making a film about such matieral always has to be done carefully and The Debt ceraintly does it well. It's intense and important and I recommend this film, it's as fitting as ever and as significant as ever.
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