Conspiracy | Kenneth Branagh, Clare Bullus

Conspiracy | Kenneth Branagh, Clare Bullus | Great Movie

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Conspiracy

	Conspiracy Kenneth Branagh, Clare Bullus Hbo Home Video, 2002 average customer review:based on 111 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Very fine docudrama

'Conspiracy' is a rare thing, a TV movie that only gets better every time you watch it.

Not that you want to watch it very often, as it's essentially a dramatisation of how the Third Reich came to make its decisions about how the extermination of European Jewry should be planned and carried out. The Nazis called a conference in a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee; after it was over, all those who attended were sent copies of the minutes, and they were supposed to destroy these copies fairly swiftly. However, one attendee failed to do so. This last remaining copy of the minutes of the Wannsee Conference is one of the (many) major pieces of evidence that the Nazis planned the destruction of the European Jews at the highest level, and that it was not merely something that just sort of happened.

'Conspiracy' is a beautifully conceived and intelligently executed movie. The genius of it is that it's basically a movie about a committee meeting. We see the preparation of the buffet (the food looks truly yummy); we see everyone arriving and making small talk; we get a tantalising glimpse of the office politics; we get little glimpses of who has high status and who has low. The SS men (Barnaby Kay and Peter Sullivan) are tired, battle-hardened and cynical. The guy in charge of planning the economic future of the Reich (Ewan Stewart) is a naive and hopeful drone, constantly introducing himself to people and being snubbed in return. The lawyer who drew up the Nuremberg laws regarding the legal status of German Jews (Colin Firth), laws that this conference is about to consign to the dustbin of history, is simmering with barely-suppressed anger and resentment. Not because he's angry about the way Jews are being treated, but because he can see that all his hard work is about to be brushed aside. The only person in the room who appears to have anything resembling sympathy for the Jews is the representative of the Reich Chancellery (David Threlfall), and he's too pussy to do anything about it.

The acting honours go to all, as this is a real ensemble piece. But it's worth mentioning Stanley Tucci, who presents Adolf Eichmann as a classic kiss-up-kick-down middle management guy, nodding and smiling at his leader's taste in music and then dismissing it with contempt once the boss has left the room; and especially Kenneth Branagh as the top man at the conference, Reinhard Heydrich, who was at the time the head of the SS Security Service and one of the most feared men in Europe. The light-hearted way in which Branagh warns Firth not to try to stop the SS from doing whatever the hell it wants (because, he casually remarks as he lights a cigarette, 'there is no shortage of meathooks' in the Third Reich) is truly chilling. Branagh never scowls, never grimaces, never gets angry, never bullies anyone, never loses his glamorous cool. He smiles and smiles and smiles, but the implicit threat is always there. It's a great performance.

The script is incredibly economical, and expands on the historical evidence in a way that I (who have read quite a bit on the subject) find to be a respectable balance between the historically plausible and the dramatically effective. The direction is subtle and intelligent. Nobody here is presented as a spooky evil villain - the film is about the many ways in which they convince themselves that they're doing the right thing. And the acting, like I said, is top-notch. I would recommend this film to be shown in schools. It shows what happens when people think that their cause is so righteous that it justifies any kind of behaviour.

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Great Movie

Wanted this on Region 2 (Europe), but couldn't get it anywhere, for some reason. Had to buy the region 1 disc and hack my dvd player to play it. Great film that i had not seen for some time. Don't expect an action packed movie full of guns and explosions. It's just a group of guys talking around a table. For those who like well acted and true to life stories, this is a wonderful piece of history. I highly recommend it.

Supurb in every way

The acting, the story, script, setting, everything is terrific. This is a film I'll watch again and again.

Outstanding

Exceptional acting, direction, and writing. Wastes no time to get to the core of the story of what took place at the meeting. Recreates, through the interaction of the meeting members, the gravity and tension of what was being discussed: the Final Solution. Outstanding filmaking and story telling.

I went to the Wannsee Conference House outside Berlin in Spring, 2008, and the head librarian told me that the scenes outside the villa were shot on site, and that the filmakers measured the inside of the house so that the movie sets would be as close to the real villa as possible.

Note: The "story" picks up immediately. There is very little in the way of history, background, or context, so, if you don't already know a little of the history, I highly recommend doing a little reading in order to get the most out of this film. You can get some of that by reading the Wannsee Conference posting at Wikipedia.

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The Secret Conference

This film tells about the secret meeting in Wannsee near Berlin that occurred in 1942. It is based on a surviving record. The beginning shows the rituals that preceded this meeting. The minutes of this meeting are to be kept secret. The problem is how to eliminate the Jews from Germany. They can't be exported to other countries. There must be a solution to this storage problem. The first step is to evacuate the Jews from Germany controlled Europe to ghettoes in the East. They will work, many will expire of "natural causes". Heydrich runs the meetings to finish on schedule, he rolls over any questions. By deferring them until later. They will operate strictly according to their Nuremberg laws. The SS will determine the treatment for those of mixed blood. A lawyer objects to the proposals as they violate the laws.

One proposal is to sterilize all the Jews. One person asks about the need for workers. Heydrich says death is the sure method of sterilization. The lawyer points out the legal problem of inheritance. Sterilization is justified as "racial hygiene"! Heydrich makes veiled threats to any objector. Some worry about the loss of labor in industry. They plan a new law to automatically divorce marriages. This may cause dissension at home. Shooting many people causes morale problems for soldiers. Their solution is use a poison gas for mass slaughter; its cost-efficient and hidden from the public. They discuss mass murder as if talking about vacation schedules. They pick Auschwitz because it is isolated. Deaths are plotted like some production schedule on an assembly line.

And so the top-level decision is given to the attendees, they all agree to obey. The trains will start rolling with people to the evacuation centers. Few records will be kept of this meeting for total secrecy. [What were they afraid of?] The ending of this film says many of the attendees were "released for lack of evidence". Only one copy of the minutes was ever found. If there was no written documents the secret would be concealed. [But the plot could be inferred by a deduction of the activities that followed this meeting.]

Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" has an Appendix on the dangers of pseudo science like "eugenics". This philosophy was derived from the ideas of Darwin, who was never a scientist in a laboratory like Pasteur or Koch. It was just a form of politics that sought to oppress certain kinds of people. Corporations like the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation backed sterilization as part of their attack on ordinary people. This same philosophy was used by the Nazi party. Crichton doesn't tell how these ideas came from Darwinists. Darwin and Lysenko both depended on the ideas of Lamarck where "acquired characteristics" are passed on to descendants. Darwin is infamous for ideas on "evolution" that can't be duplicated in a laboratory or observed by a scientist. The corporations that control the universities demand belief in "Darwinism" as a political test of its employees.

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