Subtle Labyrinth worth exploring
Labyrinth of Lies (M) 123mins
Don’t let the subtitles put you off – Labyrinth of Lies is a film well worth seeing/reading.
Blending fact and fiction, new director Giulio Ricciarelli explores a relatively obscure chapter in German history – the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.
The film begins in 1958 – long after the war and the Nuremburg trials, and, as one characters suggests, ‘‘wounds are finally beginning to heal’’.
But things aren’t quite as rosy in this rebuilt Germany as they may seem. Crusading journalist Thomas Gneilke (Andre Szymanski) barges into the public prosecutor’s office demanding justice after his friend, an Auschwitz survivor, spots one of his former tormentors teaching at a school.
This piques the interest of ambitious young lawyer Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling), a composite of two lawyers who took part in the real trials.
We discover that Radmann, like many of his peers, has no idea what really happened in Auschwitz. He’s shocked to learn that many of these death camp workers returned to their normal lives in Germany after the war, and he becomes obsessed with bringing them to justice.
The result is a powerful, if somewhat cliched, story that doesn’t rely on the usual harrowing Holocaust scenes to evoke emotion. Ricciarelli’s subtle approach is a suitable fit for such delicate subject matter, and Fehling stands out as the idealistic, yet flawed hero overwhelmed by what he has uncovered.
At one point he says to Gneilke, ‘‘If I had been there [Auschwitz], I don’t know what I would have done’’.
It’s a question you may well be asking yourself after seeing this haunting film.