Lore

An intense coming of age film set during an immense period of modern European history. Finding original stories related to the European theatre of World War Two is difficult, however this film brings an engaging and refreshing lens to the period.

The film focuses on the events at the end of World War II including the death of Adolf Hitler, the tracking down of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, the aftermath of camp survivors, and the territorial carve up of Germany. A time of lawlessness, starvation and depredation.

Within this historical period the film focuses on 5 children brought up as Hitler's Youth, who are on a journey to their Aunt's. The journey brings both physical and psychological challenges along the way for the children. Lore as the eldest child takes on the responsibility of guide, provider and parent. The historical events create the incredible physical tension in the film of a fallen 'utopia' with all of its personal dangers, violence, and hardship.

Along the way they encounter Thomas, a recently released from a concentration camp. The ensuing relationship between Lore and Thomas, which is part survival, part attraction, part revulsion and part adolescent, creates the psychological tension that is at the centre of the film.

The film has echoes of the Films Downfall of the Third Reich and Zentropa in its subject material. All three films by necessity are deeply intense psychological films. The end of the world as most in Germany new it and the incredible psychological changes that the ushering of an entirely new political, social and cultural regime brings. In my world it is almost impossible to imagine, but the children that lived through this are still alive, still with us, the living memories of that period of incredible turmoil. Fertile ground for story telling and film telling about our world and our society.