Lichtmesz23

If "Forces occultes" really "represents Vichy France's most determined effort at nazi propaganda" as one reviewer claimed, then one cannot really say they put much effort into their propaganda. A mere 45 minutes short, the film is very heavy-handed and all-too-obvious in making its point. Today the movie's in-your-face symbolism (a huge hairy spider with the masonic symbol on its back) comes off as rather campy or silly. How anyone can still regard this as "dangerous" is beyond me.It is simply too dated and too badly done to still be effective.

The hero Pierre Avenel is too clear-cut and cardboard-straight to be a real character, and that also makes it hardly believable why he is joining the Free Masons in the first place or staying with them for so long (at least five years, the movie tells us) if they are not doing any good and being just slimy, pushy characters from the beginning on. How these people could possibly rule the world is explained later, when it is revealed that these are merely the peasants in a far bigger game.

However the film is interesting for historical reasons. Avenel can be seen as a fascist idealist in the vein of Jacques Doriot. In the beginning he fiercely attacks the corruption in the parliament of both the Left and the Right. The parliamentary system is shown as ineffective and old-fashioned - at one satirically exaggerated point the parliamentarians merely utter a "cock-a-doodle-doo" or the mowing of sheep. While parliamentarians debate all day the real powers that be act behind the facade. Left or Right are merely pawns in a game for power, which reflects the fascist claim for being beyond both Left and Right and for overcoming the crisis of parliamentarianism (see Zeev Sternhell's books for that). And there is lot of cleaning up to do: FORCES OCCULTES paints the picture of a vast global conspiracy. A map in the beginning shows that only three fascist countries in the world are liberated from "Jewish-Masonic influence": Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Another crucial ideological point is the claim that the Free Masons (among them many Jews) dragged France into the war against Germany while at the same time undermining the state. This was a way to blame the pre-war elites for the disaster of 1940 and to show the necessity to replace them with fascism (which was not identical with the actual Vichy government).

The most convincing scene is the detailed depiction of a scurrilous Masonic initiation ritual. Director Jean Mamy, executed in 1949 for collaboration himself was a member of the Grand Orient de France from 1931-39, so this may be quite authentic.

ADELHEID is one of the very few films dealing with the largely forgotten brutal expulsion of the ethnic (Sudeten) German from Bohemia and Moravia in the aftermath WWII. It is even more remarkable as it was in Czechoslovakia in 1970, when this was still a dark taboo chapter in the country's history (only in the last two decades a change has occurred). The expulsion ("Odsun") of up to 3 Million people was accompanied by terrible massacres of civilians, whose perpetrators have been covered by the state afterwards through general amnesties.

Generally regarded within Czech society as an eye-for-an-eye consequence and just punishment for Hitler's occupation, ADELHEID was the first (and for decades only) film to question such a view and to criticize post-WWII treatment of the Germans by the Czechs or even present the subject. Directed by the brilliant Frantisek Vlacil (MARKETA LAZAROVA), the film has a meditative, poetic atmosphere and a few non-realistic elements: the expelled Germans dressed in black at the beginning of the film appear like ghosts in the mist, the house of the Nazi party official, where most of the action takes place, is rather presented like some mythical ogre's home from some ancient fairy tale.

The downfall of Germanys "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck (Emil Jannings), who had to resign from his position just two years after Wilhelm II. (then just 29 years old) became Emperor of the Reich. The film depicts the clash between the unexperienced and notoriously narcissistic Wilhelm II. and Bismarck, who basically had ruled the country all by himself since 1871, while Wilhelm's grandfather, Wilhelm I., had basically been a merely symbolical figure in the background.

Despite of what has often been written about this film, there is just a few National-Socialist propaganda in it - at least in the DVD-version I was able to see, which may have been cut. In one scene Bismarck explains to Wilhelm that the social problems of the country can only be solved by a "socialism from above", a "socialism" which at the same time must be "national". Another scene shows Bismarck confronting the Social Democrats at the Reichstag, among them his arch-adversary August Bebel. Bebel was Jewish, and another Jewish social-democratic member of the Reichstag (Paul Singer) makes a brief and decidedly unappealing appearance. Otherwise the film does not stress the Jewishness of the Social Democrats, at least not in the possibly edited version available.

Apart from that the film is basically a patriotic epic in the vein of D.W. Griffith's ABRAHAM LINCOLN. As usual in historical biopics, actions are simplified, condensed and dramatized, but overall DIE ENTLASSUNG is historically pretty accurate - and surprisingly complex for a nationalistic film shot within the system of the Third Reich. Some liberties have been taken, but they don't change the historical connection of the events much. There are many little details that only those with a good knowledge of Bismarck's life and the feud between him and Wilhelm will recognize. It is not true what another commentator wrote, that Wilhelm is presented with both of his arms intact. Note how he always keeps his left arm hidden in the coat or behind the back.

To non-German commentators the main significance of the story may be lost: the tragedy is not only about the fall of Bismarck and the futility of his lifework but also of the Second Reich which was his creation. The arrogance and ignorance of the young Kaiser and the manipulations of the intriguers (great: Werner Krauss) at the court prevent the renewal of a friendship pact between Germany and Russia, a centerpiece of Bismarck's diplomacy. The film is absolutely historically correct here. This failure proved to be fatal, as Russia found new allies in England and France which lead to the constellation of 1914, exactly the two-front-war that Bismarck tried to avoid. Thus the ending of the film is not "bizarre" at all - but in order to make it less fatalistic as it could have been, the bad guy Krauss gets a deserved bashing by Bismarck, after which a dissolve switches the scenery to the famous Bismarck monument build in 1906 in Hamburg. Being a war-time film under a nationalist regime the film needed some appeal to heroism in the end, covering up the more darker and pessimistic implications of the story.

Typical for the quality films of the Third Reich, DIE ENTLASSUNG relies on set-pieces and excellent acting rather than on cutting and camera work. The screenplay is by the Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia, who in fact was a conservative opponent to the Nazis. Jannings and Krauss give great performances, which make THE ENTLASSUNG indeed a far better film than its prequel BISMARCK.