One problem with
based-on-a-true-story films is the issue of recreating off-the-record dialogue:
Few people record their private moments, and fact-based films most clearly
fictionalize—and most often overreach—when they theorize about what
historical figures were like when away from the spotlight. In their
Oscar-nominated German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, director Marc Rothemund and
screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer solve the problem by avoiding it. Drawing
largely on interviews and transcripts from the interrogation and trial of the
eponymous anti-Nazi student crusader, they give Scholl (as played by The
Edukators' Julia
Jentsch) a firm, sophisticated voice in public, but often keep her silent or
minimally communicative when she drops off the record. While its long silences
sometimes become soporific, the overall result is a hushed, sober, thoughtful
film. Maybe more filmmakers should concentrate on getting their subjects to
shut up.
As part of a small
underground resistance called "the White Rose," Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans
(Fabian Hinrichs), and others wrote and distributed scathing indictments of
Hitler and the Nazis, mailing their manifestos to strangers in key professions
and painting anti-Nazi slogans in public places at night. In 1943, the Scholls
were arrested while distributing leaflets at the University of Munich, and
subjected to interrogation, a whirlwind show trial, and sentencing over the
course of less than a week. Rothemund and Breinersdorfer focus on this series
of events, particularly Sophie's encounters with an interrogator (Alexander
Held) whose conviction seems to waver in the face of her collected
determination, but who dutifully mouths the party line anyway. The film follows
a straight, clear line from its heroes' crime to their punishment, keeping the
focus tight and the scale small, presuming that everyone watching already has
all the historical context they need. Which they likely do, since it mostly
amounts to "Nazis bad."
Wearing a vivid red
sweater—often the only color in a dark landscape of blacks, browns, and
greens—Jentsch is a bright spot in a bleak world, as Rothemund no doubt
intended, and while the symbolism is strong, the image is striking and lovely.
Like much of the film, which rarely presumes to delve into Scholl's thoughts or
motivations, it's all about public image and obvious surfaces. But while the
film doesn't dig deep, or hit particularly hard, it neatly achieves its modest
goals: presenting a real-life heroine in real-life terms. A film this
fictionalized rarely feels this much like fact.