: Valkyrie
Director: Bryan Singer
When I first heard of this I thought it was fiction; then I heard it was based on a true story. How could we not have heard about this German plot to kill Hitler? Then I watched a documentary on the History Channel and realized it’s not new — I read about the suitcase bomb plot many years ago when I was a kid. What I didn’t know, and what the movie reveals extremely well, is the extent of this particular plot (hundreds of conspirators), how close they came to success, and how brilliant it was to use Hitler’s own reserve army against him. The problem with any Hitler assassination, of course, is what happens after he’s dead? It does no good if his successors are equally powerful and ruthless; the regime continues. So what made this plot different was the idea of using Valkyrie — Hitler’s own contingency plan for his reserve army to keep him in power in case of a coup — to take over. The reserve army would think they were following Hitler’s orders and would shut down the SS and imprison Hitler’s real leaders, thus allowing the conspirators to take over. Once they were in power, the rest of Hitler’s command could be shut down and a truce negotiated with the Allies to end the war. It was a terrific plan, especially in notion that Hitler did not even necessarily have to die: in the chaos following the assassination attempt, the rebels might have been able to take over anyway. Unfortunately, and tragically, of course, the attempt failed by just hours. It is sad but heroic, and it is easy to see why Germans today are proud of these people who stood up against their own commander and rebelled.
In terms of a film, this is excellently done: the complicated plot is explained extremely well (much better than the confusing History Channel documentary); it’s dramatic and interesting, and not boring at all; the bewildering number of characters are kept to a minimum and we can follow what’s happening. It’s not the best movie ever by any means, but it is very good, emotional at times, and it’s an important film everyone should see. It is hard to fathom for us today when Hitler’s such a dirty word, but back then he was still considered a hero by most of Germany, who were fooled by his propaganda and did not even know 90% of the evil he was doing, and these military officers who betrayed and tried to kill him were considered traitors. In hindsight we know they were heros, but at the time they had difficult decisions to make. Would you or I make the right decision if we were in that situation today? The film provokes many interesting questions like that. Highly recommended.
Topic: [/movie] |
