Nosferatu (1922)

My favorite vampire movie of all time is "Let the Right One In." There are just so many layers of meaning in the film to find and enjoy. Although "Nosferatu" won't be stealing first place any time soon, it's still a decent and memorable piece of German Expressionist horror.

   Radical for the time it was made, this silent era film pursues it's antagonist, Orlok (Max Schreck) like a waking nightmare. It's righteous hero, Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim,) who reminded me of "Brain-Dead"'s Lionel, only gayer, seemingly has no chance against the supernatural forces that surround him.

   Hutter is sent by his boss, Knock (Alexander Granach,) a rather repulsive old man, to go to bloodsucker Count Orlok's castle and have him sign a lease. Orlok, it seems, is looking to move in RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO HUTTER (a vampire in a residential area- isn't that lovely,) and Hutter, as an agent of Real Estate, is the man for the job.

Film Review: Everyman's War & A Few Thoughts on Our History "Curriculum"

In exploring history with my homeschoolers, I basically have two goals. I am not interested in my kids memorizing names, dates, and battles. I never thought that was the proper goal of history instruction, and in the era of Google, it seems even more pointless. First, I want them to understand the "big picture," the links between interconnected events. This helps us grasp the complicated, far-reaching consequences of choices our leaders make, the lessons history has to teach us. It enables us to become thinking citizens.

Film Review: Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006) Written & Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; Winner of Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. (It beat out Pan's Labyrinth.)

I grew up during the Cold War, a time when Europe was sharply divided by the Iron Curtain and the idea of the Berlin Wall coming down was fodder for insane predictions touted by tabloids. Then the year after I graduated from college, European communism began to dissolve, and the Berlin Wall was leveled to the ground. Suddenly we found ourselves living in a drastically changed world.

Fall of the Berlin Wall, while East German Border Guard Looks On - photo from bbc.uk

The Lives of Others is a beautiful German film that explores life under East Germany's communist regime. The story opens in 1984. Secret Service Agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is a ruthless interrogator, ambitious and single-mindedly devoted to ferreting out "enemies of socialism." For him, human nature is viewed through a very narrow lens, with no room for ambiguity.

The Boy In the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Nine-year-old Bruno enjoys his life in 1940's Berlin with his school and his three Best Friends for Life, despite the fact that his father is always busy with work and his bossy 12-year-old sister, Gretel, is A Hopeless Case. However, after a visit from The Fury, with his tiny mustache and blond girlfriend Eva, his life changes. Bruno's father has received an important work assignment far from Berlin. Bruno comes home from school to find the family's maid, Maria, packing everything in his wardrobe, even the things he'd hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business.

The family's new home at Out With is swarming with soldiers, who call Bruno's father Commandant, and new servants who seem angry and frightened. Then there are the people who live behind the fence, surprisingly thin, identically dressed in striped pajamas. Bruno's father doesn't talk much about those people; he simply tells him that they're not really human.

Lonely for his friends, Bruno meets Schmuel, one of the children behind the fence. The boys share a birthday and even look a bit alike. They have both recently been displaced from their homes. Day after day, they sit on opposite sides of a barbed wire fence, talking and sharing snippets of their lives, without Bruno ever grasping what life is like on the other side.

John Boyne has written a short, deceptively simple story in which Bruno's extreme innocence and naivety is deliberately contrasted with the extreme cruelty and evil that we know is the backdrop for the story. Written in a simple, somewhat formal style, this novel is stripped down to bare bones. When an atrocity occurs, all the details are omitted; in a sense, this makes them even more disturbing.
Boyne ends the story with the ironic lines: "Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age."

In his afterward, he takes us back to the image of the two boys sitting on opposite sides of the fence, a picture that came to him and compelled him to write this story. "Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one."

This story has been described as a parable. We see Bruno, sitting at the fence day after day, clearly glimpsing Schmuel's humanity, but not really understanding what's on the other side. He is surrounded by adults who know what's happening on the other side but deny the humanity of the people there.
This does seem like a particularly apt metaphor for our world, doesn't it? In a world plagued with wars, and with the overarching evil of genocide still alive and well, I identify with the child outside the fence, kind-hearted but shockingly oblivious to what's in front of him. As I got pulled into this simple story, I realized how powerful that image is, and I found myself looking at my reflection. It prodded me to ask the question: "How can I live in this world comfortably, not really looking at what's right in front of me?"

I recommend this thought-provoking book to all readers. And while I don't think it was written for children, it might be a good choice for middle grade or pre-teen readers who are ready for an introduction to The Holocaust. I'd preview it first, because while it leaves out all the gruesome details, it provokes disturbing questions. You might try pairing it with The Diary of Anne Frank or Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. For mature teens who are ready for gruesome details, you might couple it with The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. If there are excellent young adult novels about the Bosnian conflict, the Rwandan genocide, and similar topics, these might also be a good fit.

Read More Reviews of this Book:
Bermuda Onion
Bibliophile by the Sea
Bloggin' 'bout Books

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Requiem

     When it comes to rating movies, how should a film like Requiem be treated? Taken as entertainment, it is horrible. The viewer waits, sickened by the inevitable conclusion, but when it comes it is still like a poke in the gut. It is horrific, yet not horror, and shouldn't be advertised as "scary" in any conventional sense.

     But it strikes me as brave how directer Hans-Christian Schmid delivers his story -- sharp and gimmickless. His viewpoint is clear -- the girl was mentally sick. Nothing other than ignorance and her own mind conspired against her. Whether this notion would have helped anything remains distant.

     But the film doesn't need vomit or swiveling heads, shocks or hallucinations. It has Sandra Huller. Fully absorbed in her role, Sandra furiously portrays Michaela Klinglar, a character based, apparently, on a real German girl named Annalise Michaels, who lived in 1970's Germany.

    Michaela, as many young people would, hopes to leave her parents for college, and eventually, a career in teaching. She announces she will be leaving for university. She seems healthy and capable enough, but her mother speaks quietly and archaically of her illness and its eventual effect on her future.

     Michaela lives with three people, her parents and a younger sibling. Her mother coldly talks of her daughter's limitations in way that radiates cruelty, not care.  New clothes that show Michaela's figure are promptly thrown away in the night for being trampy. Even when her mother presents a gift, tension lies in the air.

     The girl's father secretly resents serving as his daughter's shield. But her mother relents, and she is given a chance to try a life of classes and socialization. The family is religious, as is Michaela, but at her school, belief in a higher power has gone out of style. Her mention of God is met by snickers. An at first aloof old classmate hangs around with her, as long as religion and self-help are not brought up, even with earnest intentions.

     When Michaela first begins to suffer seizures, black-outs, and hallucinations, she manages to cover up the incidents.  Her requests for help from a priest invoke less-than-helpful response. She begins going out with a boy who promises, when asked, to stand by her, foolishly ignoring the conditions.

     When her parents do discover her degeneration, they make the tragic decision to involve the church in her rehabilitation. While her stretches of coherency become rarer, she becomes a spiritual guinea pig for exorcisms and is denied the psychiatric care she so desperately needs.

     Two films have been made involving the case of Anneliese Michels, the other being a Hollywood courtroom thriller titled The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which concentrates on the supernatural aspects of the case.

      Schmid has no use for the superstition of the latter, but at times his stance becomes all-too-clear, involving overwrought scenes with a harsh priest and an earnest member of the church whose cure for insanity is a good round of bible study.

     Even as Requiem falters, Sandra Huller's intense performance, conveying the hope for normalcy and pain of rejection and illness, almost single-handedly keeps the viewer's interest. Some say the docu-style filming is boring, but I say it is a courageous attempt to strip Annalise's story to the basics, dropping the shocks and visualized nightmares that distract from the reality of the situation.

For more information on Anneliese Michels, check out this link (Spoilers!) here

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

   The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a regular kid -- not a child prodigy, not particularly wise beyond his years. The only thing that separates him from the willfully blind adults who surround him is that he has not yet learned to hate. The film never depicts him as a hero, at least an intentional one, just a kid who acts like any other would act, innocently unknowing of the expectations and prejudices of those around him.

     The protagonist is a blue-eyed, brown-haired eight-year-old named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) living in a stage were fantasy and reality remain merged. He resides with his family in Germany, with his older sister, soldier dad, and mom. He tries to find fun as best he can, with no help from his sibling, who is the simpering lapchild type, engaged in a misguided coming-of-age, decorating her walls with appreciation for her country and throwing aside her dolls.

     After living comfortably in their home, his family announces they are to move away, closer to the new job. His father has earned a promotion. This is supposed to be good news, but isn't for Bruno - he wants his old house and friends and doesn't want his life changed. Worse, he has no say about the matter and is moved to a base where men in gray pass him stiffly,  talking to his father.

    There are no children he can see, until he stumbles quite by accident on a farm occupied by underwashed, underfed people. He is encouraged to stay away, as his father tells him the people are not humans and shouldn't be treated as such. But they seem human enough to him, especially Schmeul, a boy his age who catches his attention. They meet and laugh at each other's names, and promise to visit more.

     In a different situation, the friendship would be considered harmless, and Bruno would be able to freely play with the boy before his return. The fact that he is living in Auschwitz puts a damper on that ideal. As is, Schmeul is treated as a flea-ridden cat -- don't bother to get attached to him, he'll be gone soon enough. But love for his fatherland has not impressed itself in Bruno's mind yet, and he ignores the others warnings', pleased to have another child to interact with.

     This film is based on a young adult novel by John Boyne, described as a "fable" by the author. It contains telling details of the holocaust, but from a child's eye view -- nothing is treated as if Bruno's concentration was turned, and yellow stars and fences are interspersed with the normal thoughts of a kid - toys, friends, and irritating siblings. It is a small but powerful story, meant to send a message with only as much information as we need. The rest we know for ourselves.

     For basically first-time actors, the young boys who play Bruno and Schmeul do fairly well. However, I was annoyed by the skips and jumps in Butterfield's performance. In scenes of fantasy and play, he behaved naturally, but when the story becomes more intense, he seemed slightly confused about how to react to the script, which hampered the believability somewhat. He did a generally good job, however, and one shouldn't want him to progress too fast to avoid a Culkin-ish speed-up of maturity.

     The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is quiet and infused with moral ambiguity. Bruno doesn't view his father as a monster even as he begins to know more. Even his mother doesn't seem completely aware of the situation, and although she knows of the prisoners, it still comes as a shock when she figures out what the torrent of smoke streaming into the air is.

     Also, it contains the most shocking and unexpected ending since The Life Before Her Eyes. Although the adults turn away, reminding themselves of their good fortune that they are not within the barbed fence, they are forced, in the most horrendous way possible, to look back. Everybody finds their inner humanity, and no one wins (Rated PG-13.)

*

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Eifelheim opens in August, 1348 in the German village of Oberhochwald. As Dietrich, the parish priest, begins his daily rituals, the area is struck by a freak storm, and an electrical charge sparks a great fire. Believing this marks God's final judgment, parishioners offer their confessions -- disclosing sins that are already common knowledge in the small village.

In time, they realize an alien race, landed "from the stars," has crashed in a nearby forest. The villagers struggle to fit this into their understanding of reality, which is based on an earth-centered universe -- the visitors are first believed to be lepers or demons. On the other hand, the locals are predisposed to accept the existence of unusual creatures by their rich tradition of folklore. Their church is decorated with remnants of Greek mythology, like centaurs, and creatures with deep roots in German "pagan" tradition, including giants, elves, and kobolds. The church carvings also include wyverns, gargoyles, and basilisks. All these creatures blend seamlessly with images of their patron saint and the last supper.

Eventually the villagers become accustomed to the presence of the aliens, who use a device to communicate with the earthlings. Their intellect is equal -- or superior -- to humans, and they bring ideas that strike the reader as modern. For example, their language is woven from what appears to be binary code, and they recognize that tiny organisms cause disease. On the other hand, their sensibilities are very different. They are guided by instinct rather than empathy, and they have difficulty understanding the concept of charity or grasping the nuances of human language. Dietrich ponders whether the visitors have souls, sparking thought provoking questions about what it means to be "human."

Meanwhile, battles loom, and Oberhochwald faces the judgment of other villagers and of powerful people in the church, who suspect them of harboring demons. The Black Plague, which is decimating the population throughout Europe, is closing in. These elements form a story that's compelling and tragic.

In a parallel story, modern scholars Sharon and Tom grapple with challenging academic questions. Sharon, a physicist, is pondering the nature of time and space, closing in on an explanation of how someone might cross galaxies. Her lover Tom is a cliologist, engaged in a mathematical study of history. He is baffled by the disappearance of a medieval German village that vanished during the Black Plague and was never resettled.

Sharon and Tom's relationship and academic quests are intriguing, but these characters are one dimensional. They seem to exist primarily as a plot device and as a way to dabble in a blend of real and fanciful quantum physics. The primary story -- the tale of Oberhochwald -- is much deeper and richer.

Dietrich, the parish priest, is at the heart of the story. He is a thoughtful man, well versed in science and logic; he had received a rich classical education and studied medicine, with some of the great minds of the time, in Paris. He is also a passionately dedicated, compassionate priest who hides dark secrets of his own. The village is vividly recreated, revealing the author's many layers of knowledge about medieval manoral life and the science, philosophy, theology, and worldview of the European Middle Ages.

I was fascinated by this vibrant, thoughtful portrait of medieval Germany and by the interaction between their people and an alien species. The writing is beautiful -- this author is really a master of his craft. And I enjoyed the vivid descriptive writing, which brought Oberhochwald to life, and the clever humor.

Here is a snippet:

They crossed over the millbrook bridge and took the road toward Bear Valley. The fallow fields lay on the left and the autumn fields on the right, the ground swelling higher and edging into the dirt track, pinching it until it seemed more trench than road. Hedgerows and briar bushes, meant to keep cows and sheep from wandering into the croplands, provided a bit of inadvertent shade to the walkers -- and seemed veritable trees by reason of the height of the land from which they sprouted. The road, muddy through this stretch from a rivulet tributary to the millbrook, meandered first this way, then that, as slope and pitch dictated. Dietrich had wondered at times what sort of place Bear Valley might be that travelers seemed disinclined to go straight there.

And here's a bit that made me smile:

Items had been appearing regularly in his Eifelheim file, all properly beribboned and pedigreed like dogs at a kennel show. Judy was a meticulous researcher. She had located monastic annals, uncovered manorial accounts, unearthed tantalizing odds and ends -- the haphazardly preserved detritus of a vanished world ... (a list of documents follows) ... A levy dated 1289, in the Generallandesarchiv Baden, by Markgraf Hermann VII of Baden on Ugo Heyso of Oberhochwald for six-and-a-half foot soldiers and one-and-a-half horse soldiers ...Why, the question of how a vassal might supply six-and-a-half soldiers to his liege is one to occupy a salon of Jesuits.

I found Eifelheim a challenging and very slow read. In a way, I appreciated the slow pace, as there was a wealth of interesting ideas to absorb. On the other hand, I sometimes found it tedious and had to prod myself to keep going. There were too many characters to get to know well, and the slow, methodical pondering of medieval philosophy weighed down the flow of the storytelling.

This novel shines with a wealth of fascinating knowledge and intriguing ideas, exploring quantum physics, human thought through the ages, good vs. evil, and variations on being "human." But the storytelling, which should have been the heart of the book, often seemed to be held captive by the author's desire to pack in so many ideas. It's a book that many readers will find brilliant and others will find tedious; some -- like me -- will experience a bit of both. Nevertheless, this is a story I am unlikely to forget.

Read More Reviews: Claw of the Conciliator; A Good Stopping Point


Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me