Sophie Scholl, portrayed here by Julia Jentsch, was ruthlessly interrogated for her anti-Nazi stance, and eventually executed for her defiance.
Herald rating: * * * *
The heroine of this sober, gripping German-language drama - Sophie Scholl, a young member of the anti-Nazi resistance executed for her defiance - has had her story told before, in two 1982 films.
She was also namechecked in the final minutes of
the riveting 2002 documentary Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, when that film's subject, Traudl Junge, acknowledged that if Scholl knew what was going on, she (Junge) should have too.
This version of her story relies on documents hidden in East German archives until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those documents must have revealed Scholl's prime interrogator, Robert Mohr (Held), as a fascinating, complex figure, because screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer has conjured from the dusty transcripts an epic contest of wills, a battle of ideas that make for terrific drama.
The film follows the last six days in the life of Scholl, arrested in February 1943 with her brother and another member of a small resistance group called the White Rose, after distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at a university. With Germany having just been routed at Stalingrad, such dissent was regarded with particular disfavour by the panicky authorities.
Most of the film is taken up by Sophie's interrogation, which director Rothemund observes with a clinical, documentary detachment, devoid of incidental music to heighten the mood.
The single false note is the spittle-flecked caricature of a trial judge, but the main performance by Jentsch (one of The Edukators' trio) is deeply impressive, a miracle of dignity and self-possession.
Cast: Julia Jentsch, Alexander Held, Fabian Hinrichs
Director: Mark Rothemund
Running time: 117 mins
Rating: M (adult themes)
Screening: Bridgeway, Rialto
Verdict: Jentsch's quiet self-possession as the doomed heroine of the anti-Nazi resistance anchors an unsensational but fascinating interrogation drama.
