betadron Reviews

Arctic Blue - Machtpoker im schmelzenden Eis (2022)

The future of mankind

[6/10 · 25 December 2022]

The documentary series makes a compelling statement at the very end: The future of mankind will be decided in the north.

Climate change, aka global warming, will have profound effects on the arctic regions of our planet, and will eventually effect all of us on a global scale. While the director of this two-part documentary couldn't really decide if it's more about the environmental or political aspects, it reflects the complexity of the entire topic: The changing climate will turn the arctic regions from a once uninhabitable world of ice into future accessible zones, contested by a variety of northern countries like Russia, Norway and Canada. Inevitably, it seems, political, military but also economic interests and motivations will collide at a time when unpredictable environmental changes with huge global ramifications loom ahead.

While it's certainly not the best of this kind of documentaries, it highlights critical recent developments with both new challenges and opportunities, but also new potential threats in a place of our world, that for most of us seems too far away to be of any significance.

The Conference (2022 TV Movie)

The brutal logic of a fascist bureaucracy

[7/10 · 21 January 2022]

How do you eliminate millions of people? This question had dwelled in the minds of Hitler and his inner circle for a long time. By July 1941, Germany had turned into a fascist dictatorship under the "Fuhrer" Adolf Hitler; the concentration camps were full of people deemed "unwanted" and "subhuman", the war in Europe was about to escalate into the second World War, and the Holocaust had already begun. Now the NS elite looked for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" and delegated this task to the chief of the Reich Security Main Office, Reinhard Heydrich. A couple months later, on January 20, 1942, Heydrich invited top representatives of the cornerstone political and military branches to a meeting at a villa at the Wannsee in Berlin.

There have been a couple of movies about this most infamous conference in modern history, especially the German TV-movie from 1984 and the British-US production "Conspiracy" from 2001.

All movies face the same problem: Little is known about the actual event, one of the few historical sources is the only surviving copy of the conference protocol that was authored by Adolf Eichmann and Heydrich, both now known as the architects of the holocaust.

This means that we don't really know how the meeting took place, how the participants behaved, what they talked about apart from what's on the record. All of that has to be "invented" by means of film dramaturgy and historical knowledge about the people involved.

This latest film, as well as the previous German movie from 1984, is based on a play by Paul Mommertz, which has both received criticism and praise since its premiere. The subject of criticism has mostly been the depiction of a variety of people, especially Eichmann and Heydrich. Movies often tend to lend Nazis characters like that a demon-like aura, a natural evil of some sort that seems self-explaining. The more frightening reality is that Heydrich, Eichmann and all the other participants weren't demons but human beings, though following an inhumane, extreme ideology; believing in a "cause" that had already lead to the deaths of millions and which should lead to the death of millions more. They truly believed that what they did was right - and that they had the natural right to do it.

"Die Wannseekonferenz" excels in portraying this key event with an eerie sense of cold soberness, perfectly capturing the brutal logic of a fascist bureaucracy, where law is weaponized and everyone and everything subordinated under the doctrine of war and genocide.

No over-dramatization or -fictionalization, no unnecessary background score to paint the picture darker than it already is, and a very accurate historical portrayal of the real life personas - in my opinion the most outstanding features of this film in contrast to the other ones mentioned earlier.

The only thing that's truly missing in my opinion is some sort of historical comment other than the mention of the murder of six million jews at the end of the movie. I think, it is absolutely important to provide the audience with a context of why and when this conference took place, and more importantly of all people involved, especially the lesser known ones. It is important because the planning and execution of the holocaust spanned across all political and military branches, not just a dedicated elite - and despite the secrecy of this meeting the Nazis made sure that everyone was bound to it by complicity.

For all following generations, the holocaust constitutes a crime of unprecedented nature and scale, with terrible consequences reaching into our very present. For its planners, perpetrators and supporters, it was the fateful challenge, the biggest on the way to a racially pure, germanic European future. Imagine the horrors of a future built on the remains of millions of murdered human beings, imagine a dystopia world like that planned in what looks like a completely normal business meeting. That's what the Wannsee Conference was to Heydrich and everyone invited.

Apollo: The Forgotten Films (2019 TV Movie)

Apollo 11 nostalgia and new insights

[7/10 · 21 December 2021]

Like a lot of the documentaries concerning the Apollo program and the moon landings, this one mainly focuses on the historical Apollo 11 flight, with men's first steps on our next door celestial neighbor. The narrative, the music, the picture composition are all heavily breathing nostalgia in the first minutes - and that's ok, given the 50th anniversary of mankind's giant leap into space.

The film soon gets much more interesting when it features rarely seen footage from the NASA archives in brilliant picture quality. Not just from the tests and flights, but also surrounding it, covering the training of the astronauts and remembering its audience that going to the moon was not just about flying a spacecraft. It involved a lot more, and this documentary gives a good glimpse into the immense research and preparation that went into the program. And that's why it's a little sad that so much of this film revolves around Apollo 11, while a lot of other aspects (like the development and testing of the lunar module) either fall rather short or don't get mentioned at all (like the lunar rover used on the later Apollo missions). I always find it a little sad and unjustified that the Apollo program in its entirety is overshadowed by that first historical landing, while all the other missions leading to and following it are absolutely fascinating and exciting in their own right, too.

Nonetheless, this documentary is worth your time and you'll get to see a couple pictures you probably haven't seen before.

Operation Walküre (1971 TV Movie)

Even after 50 years one of the best documentaries on July 20, 1944

[7/10 · 30 November 2021]

This is one of the best documentaries about the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler and the attempted coup d'état by the German military resistance on July 20, 1944. What makes this particular one so outstanding are the dozens of interviews with contemporary witnesses, people who had been more or less, actively and passively, involved with and participating in the military resistance and the events surrounding the 20th July, the most prominent voices probably being Albert Speer, back then German minister of armaments and war production, and (infamously) Otto Ernst Remer, who was ordered by Hitler himself to quash the coup in Berlin.

The two-part semi-docudrama is moderated by well renowned and respected German historian Joachim Fest, who previously had directed a portrait about Speer ("Der Architekt") and who would later write the excellent documentary "Hitler - Eine Karriere", as well as his most famous work "Der Untergang" about the last days of the Third Reich.

The style of "Operation Walküre" is a meticulous and almost academic approach, shifting between narration parts, interview segments and re-enactments of important scenes and events, nearly all of them on historical locations. Combining all these elements, this film provides a sobering experience without unnecessary dramatization or fictionalization, explaining in detail and chronological order what led to this fateful day in German history and what happened afterwards. Especially the numerous witness accounts lend the film a great deal of credibility and authenticity, a feat that I personally also value very much in the brilliant British TV-series "World at War". It's a huge difference if you still have firsthand testimonies from living witnesses available roughly 25 years after the end of the war or if it's up to a couple of professional experts to replicate their thoughts and opinions more than half a century later, when none of them are alive anymore.

While this documentary is now 50 years old and certainly lacks the latest findings in historical research, it doesn't fail in delivering a concise analysis of the events of July 20, 1944. In that regard, one of the most interesting details in my opinion is the interpretation of the role of Erwin Rommel within the military resistance - a debate that is continuing to this day.

If you don't want to rely on the manifold fictionalized versions (Hollywood or not) or History-Channel-like over-sensationalism, then I absolutely recommend to watch "Operation Walküre". It might be a bit difficult to obtain such an old film (there is a German 2-DVD-set available), but I still consider it to be superior to almost all later documentaries about this topic.

Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadly Secrets (2017) Season 3, Episode 0

Probably the worst and most appalling documentary about Chernobyl. Ever.

[1/10 · 15 March 2021]

OMG, the greatest engineer of all time (because an architectural engineer also understands the technology of a RBMK nuclear reactor!), Phil Grossman, singlehandedly exposes the scandalous truth about the great Chernobyl conspiracy! Was it an "accident"? Was it CIA sabotage? Watch Grossman present decades-old, well-researched facts about the worst nuclear disaster in history as if HE and only HE himself found out about them first and twist them into an absolutely ridiculous conspiracy narrative. Watch Grossman visit the exclusion zone "as one of few" while actually thousands of other people from all backgrounds have done so before. Watch Grossman satisfying his apparently oversized ego by making this a documentary about himself rather than the disaster and its aftermath - which has been documented dozens of times before, and even the worst documentaries do the subject better justice than this conspiracy-nut hackjob.

Score (2016)

A glimpse into the world of scoring

[7/10 · 27 February 2020]

I want to cut it very short with my review: Excellent documentary with the potential for A LOT more! I guess everyone has a couple of favourite film music composers that didn't get mentioned or interviewed in this documentary, although the audience gets a pretty impressive A-list of Hollywood's premier league of scoring. There's is room for many more, and there is much more to be told about the history, or topics like experimental film scores, scores in independent films and long lasting director-composer companionships, but obviously not in a 90-minute feature. Therefore, the only thing I really missed was the aspect of film directors-as-composers, like Clint Eastwood or John Carpenter.

If you have at least one film score you really like listening to (not just in the film), than you should watch this documentary.

Rakka (2017)

Rather extensive commercial than short movie

[5/10 · 4 July 2017]

I'll be THAT guy, who gives one of the rare thumbs-down. A lot of people, who have watched RAKKA for free on Youtube, Steam, etc. have commented: "How is this free?". Well, commercials usually are, even if they are high-profile, expensive short-movie-with-popular-actors commercials.

I got introduced to the art of Mr. Blomkamp by his early and absolutely brilliant short movies "Tetra Vaal" (which "Chappie" was later based on) and "Alive in JoBurg" (turned into "District 9"). Those movies did not only display technological proficiency by a very young, very talented film student, but more important: originality. I consider "District 9" to be one of the most remarkable sci-fi movies ever made, setting a very high bar, especially for the director himself.

"Rakka" leaves me with the impression that either this bar might be difficult to reach for Blomkamp, or he didn't intend to create something genuine, rather a 22-minute exposition vehicle to demonstrate the capabilities of his own production company. In this regard, "Rakka" excels impressively. It's a tour-de-VFX with stunning, emotionally appealing visuals and CGI designs, altogether recommending Oats Studios for three-digit million dollar heavy Hollywood productions.

But as for the story and it's narrative, it is tedious and uninspired. Let's look at the checklist:

✔ aliens invade earth to destroy everything and exterminate humanity ✔ aliens invade earth to harvest terrestrial resources ✔ aliens probably trying to colonize earth, hence aforementioned measures ✔ humanoid aliens ✔ human survivor resistance ✔ everything exciting exclusively happens in the United States ✔ the obligatory tough guy ✔ the obligatory crazy guy ✔ the obligatory wasted-in-his-first-scene guy ✔ the obligatory female heroine(s) ✔ the obligatory chosen one ✔ alien thought- and mind-control ✔ alien omnipotence, spoiled by a ridiculously exploitable weakness

Unfortunately, this is not the "things I've NEVER seen a dozen times before" list. Especially the setting that is revealed within the first minute reminded me of the series "Falling Skies". I've grown tired of predictable stories like that, where aliens are actually a mere projection of all evil that humanity is capable doing to itself (without any alien intervention). Nice allegory, but this horse has been beaten to death more than once already.

I can only hope and wish that Mr. Blomkamp doesn't turn into a Ridley Scott like director - someone with a great instinct for powerful visuals, but in desperate need of good writers.

Klemperer - Ein Leben in Deutschland (1999– )

"Based on motives", or: How to distort historical reality

[5/10 · 12 June 2017]

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960) has left us with an impressive body of work. Besides his academic work as a Romance language scholar and later as a politician in the former GDR, Klemperer is most renowned for the extensive diaries he wrote, especially between the years 1933-1945, the time of national socialism in the 'Third Reich'. The revised, eight volume edition of these diaries alone offer more than a thousand pages of everyday observations, commentary and brilliant analysis of life in Adolf Hitler's Germany. For an author, such an authentic and detailed historical source usually means hitting the jackpot. Unfortunately, screen writer Peter Steinbach, for whatever reason, thought it necessary to enrich Klemperer's life testimony with so many own "creative" ideas, that it's almost borderline perversion of history. Events and actions that never took place are inserted as well as characters that didn't exist, while other important key figures are either dreadfully distorted or completely left out.

The result is unnecessary dramatization at the wrong time, while important details in the story are overlooked or treated carelessly. Among those are Klemperer's observations of the Nazi's rise to power; his study of the 'vox populi', popular opinion and thought at a time, when both were eroding and hidden in privacy; his analysis of the language of national socialism; his unrelenting adherence to academic work; the importance of the house that he built with his wife, and a lot more. With every new episode of this mini series, the distortions of Klemperer's historical work become more obvious and aggravating. Neither Klemperer himself, nor his work have deserved such a "creative" treatment, not even under every film producer's most popular excuse called 'dramatic license'.

Ignore all that and you get a well produced and ambitious series with some of the most outstanding German actors, against a most unimpressive backdrop of generic historical film clichés. If you are really interested in Klemperer's life and his valuable insight into the darkest abyss of German history, find the time and read his diaries rather than watching this lackluster effort.