and
Vampires are cool, ghosts can be spooky, but when you really want to get a monstrous antagonist with some staying power, it’s hard to go wrong with the Nazis. The quasi-mysticism, the self-destructive ideology, the appalling bigotry, and their sleek aesthetic design gives them visual appeal; They’re responsible for the deaths of over 10 million people and took control over most of Europe, but they also got their asses kicked hard, so they’re threatening but not so overtly strong that the protagonists don’t have a chance. Sure, the fact that our pop culture profits off of a government known for burning hundreds of people alive in massive ovens may seem in bad taste, but that’s exactly what makes them so alluring as villains. Nazis are the universal evil, no other political party or military force in human history have the same level name recognition and body count attributed to their actions, and because they’re such a figure of that which we consider ‘evil’ in this world, they have transcended historical record and become archetypes, which we can mold and adapt to fit our desires. They can be goofy, they can be all-powerful, they can be wizards, they can be super-scientists, they can be super villains, and sometimes (in certain circumstances) they can even be sympathetic. What Nazism actually represented is oftentimes obscured by their oversaturated presence in pop culture, and that’s something that should never happen, but I think there’s a certain poetic justice in the culmination of Hitler’s vision being reduced to the level of Chuckie or the Gingerdead Man.
Although not quite at that level of B-movie boogeyman, the Nazis are indeed the bad guys in Franklin J. Schaffner’s The Boys From Brazil, released through 20th Century Fox. It’s the late 70s, and from all accounts the remnants of the former Nazi Party are gathering themselves together in Paraguay (South America being totally okay with sheltering people who would actively work towards seeing them eradicated, which you would think they’d be against). It seems that Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, is at the head of a clandestine plan involving the murder of 65 year old civil servants across the Western world and maybe, just maybe, the pseudoscientific resurrection of a certain mustachioed lunatic despot. The only hope our world has seems to rest on the shoulders of one Ezra Liebermann, a Nazi hunter from the days of old. Can he put the pieces together and stop the Nazis and their insane plans once and for all? Well, it’s the Nazis, so that should tell you something right there.
Putting aside the now outdated ideas about biology that exists as the crux of the story, suspension of disbelief and all that, The Boys From Brazil is a movie that really really relies on the strength of its two main actors: the legendary Laurence Olivier as Ezra Liebermann and the equally amazing Gregory Peck as Josef Mengele. Peck’s Mengele is arguably the driving force of the movie, combining a vampiric charm with the dogmatic mania commonly attributed with Nazism. Olivier, while perhaps dipping too deeply into stereotypes, is the understated, meek foil to Peck’s commanding presence. Unfortunately none of the other characters really have as much of a presence (especially not the Hitlers), which makes the wait time before the inevitable seem far longer than it already. I guess the fact we even want to see that confrontation is a good sign though.
The Boys From Brazil is a little bit too long for its own good, and for a thriller movie there is a noticeable lack of action. Seeing two great actors together on the silver screen is a treat though, and seeing Peck go full on Triumph of the Will is entertaining when he really gets to chew the scenery. If you just got done watching some Indiana Jones movies this Halloween and you needed another movie where the Nazis fail like they always do, you could do worse than this. It’s got all the douchebag Hitler tweens you could ever want.
No comments:
Post a Comment