Movies
I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy Of Simon Wiesenthal (2006)
Richard Trank's I Have Never Forgotten You chronicles the life and legacy of the late Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal. Dubbed the preeminent "Nazi Hunter," Wiesenthal dedicated his life post-WWII towards investigating and uncovering Nazi criminals. His conviction that there is no time limit for justice earned him praise but simultaneously invigorated his detractors, who ranged from Austrian politicians to neo-Nazis. While Wiesenthal was largely commended for his investigations into infamous Nazis—including one of the architects of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann—but he would enter into controversy after his public revelation and combination of Friedrich Peter being a Nazi. Bruno Kreisky—the Jewish Chancellor of Austria—forcefully defended Peter, resulting in much of the Austrian public coalescing in mass opposition to Wiesenthal, but he opted to remain in Vienna as "a soldier stays on the battlefield." I Have Never Forgotten You illustrates that Wiesenthal's pursuit of justice was never-ending as he believed that stopping his work would betray the memories of those that did not survive the Holocaust. The movie emphasizes the shared responsibility that Austrians have for Nazi Germany's war crimes. A key motivator for why war crimes trials exist today, Wiesenthal did not want to be remembered as a hero but simply as a survivor.
No Time Limit For Justice
The Zone Of Interest (2023)
Movies often portray evil in overly exaggerated ways, but Jonathan Glazer's The Zone Of Interest offers a unique perspective: evil can be ordinary and almost mundane. The movie follows the family of Nazi Commandant Rudolph Höss as they live next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Höss family engages in normal family activities, such as swimming in a river nearby or hosting a pool party in their lush garden. However, the discovery of human remains in the river and the constant chimney smoke beyond the garden walls serve as constant reminders that the family's idyllic lives are merely a facade for the horrors next door. The Höss family is willing to tolerate, overlook, and even participate in genocide in order to maintain the benefits of their affluent lives. On the possibility of her family being transferred elsewhere, Rudolph's wife, Hedwig—the self-described "Queen Of Auschwitz"—bemoans the potential loss of her "perfect life." This twisted thinking was also inherited by their children, one of which locked his brother in the greenhouse that he playfully pretended was a gas chamber. The Zone Of Interest conveys that ordinary evil is a frightening and unsettling reality as everybody has the capacity to commit evil.
Ordinary Evil
Woman In Gold (2015)
Memories act as mechanisms to keep the past alive and—as postulated by Simon Curtis' Woman In Gold—to learn from the errors of the past and best not repeat them. A Jewish refugee that fled her homeland of Austria following the Anschluss, an elderly Maria Altmann living in America sought the help of a fledgling lawyer to acquire the painting of her aunt Adele that was stolen by the Nazis. Now in the possession of the Austrian government, the painting became an Austrian national icon and was commonly referred to as the Woman in Gold, thus depriving Adele of her identity and rendering her an anonymous effigy. While many Austrians sees the painting as the Mona Lisa of Austria, all Maria sees is her aunt and she wants to be reunited with what is rightfully her family's. The movie offers a compelling analysis of Austria's history through the government's refusal to admit that the painting was stolen and to return it to Maria, thereby declining to reckon with the country's Nazi past. Woman In Gold affirms that Maria wanted the painting back not for monetary reasons, but instead to seek justice and to not allow younger generations to forget what happened.
The Mona Lisa Of Austria
The Sound Of Music (1965)
While I would not consider myself to the biggest fan of musicals, Robert Wise's The Sound Of Music proved to be a movie with beautiful scenery, catchy songs, and a compelling story. However, a glaring issue with the film is its historical revisionism by attempting to portray Austria as a victim of the Nazi regime rather than what it was in reality: a full-throated ally of the Nazis. Nearly all the Austrian characters—from the strict Captain von Trapp to the nun-turned-wife Maria Rainer—opposed the 1938 Anschluss, with the climax of the movie being the von Trapp family fleeing Austria in response to this event. The movie poignantly emphasized this with the melodic Edelweiss song, as its verse "Bless My Homeland Forever" denotes a patriotic resistance against the arrival of the Nazis in Austria. In truth, most Austrians in 1938 welcomed the Nazis with open arms, including celebrating the infamous arrival of Adolf Hitler in Vienna. This whitewashing of history is sadly not unique to The Sound Of Music and instead was a fixture of Austrian society following WWII when it tried to curate an unblemished image for itself.
Bless My Homeland Forever
The Devil's Bath (2024)
A surprisingly gory yet simultaneously thoughtful film, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil’s Bath explores the Catholic Church and, more succinctly, the inconsistencies surrounding its doctrines. The movie delves into the worsening mental state of a devout woman named Agnes during the eighteenth century, eventually culminating in her committing suicide by proxy. This rare yet fascinating phenomenon occurs when a suicidal Catholic decides to kill someone else in order to end their life through execution while still receiving God’s mercy by asking for forgiveness, rather than simply committing suicide. The movie does a commendable job in demonstrating Agnes’ unhappiness with her life and her deep depression—something that was taboo in that time period—thus making it understandable why she would want to end her life. At the same time, it masterfully points out the inconsistencies within the Catholic Church, which, in my mind, also reveals the Church’s hypocrisy. The Church considers suicide to be one of the most unforgivable sins, while the loophole of indirectly killing oneself as punishment for killing someone else is forgivable in God’s eyes, despite the fact that more people are harmed as a result of the latter action. It is apparent to me that if the Catholic Church’s hypocrisy about suicide was remedied, much of the plot of The Devil’s Bath would be moot, which admittedly would be far less of an interesting film than the impressive end result.
The Hypocrisy Of The Pious
The Third Man (1949)
Most likely the oldest movie I have ever watched in my entire life, Carol Reed's The Third Man proved beyond a shadow of a doubt why it has persisted as a cult classic for seventy-five years. Following renowned American author Holly Martins investigating the alleged death of his friend Harry Lime, the movie takes place in a fractured Vienna post-World War II, with the Austrian capital divided into four different sections under the control of the major Allied Powers. A large portion of the film is set in the British-controlled section of the city where its devastation from the war is dramatically apparent. As Martins uncovers the truth about Lime's purported death and past misdeeds, he travels along the beautiful Viennese cityscape and has a memorable scene on one of Vienna's most noteworthy sites—the Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel. The The Third Man poignantly evokes the fatigue much of Europe felt—represented by Lime and Major Calloway—and the idealism of America—represented by Martins—during the aftermath of the war.
The Ghost Of A City's Past
