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BEFORE THE FALL Send This Review to a Friend
The major story about Nazi atrocities understandably has been about the persecution of victims in Hitler’s efforts at conquest and in the Holocaust. But what of young people within Nazi Germany who may have become disillusioned and in some way resisted? There have been stories of organized resistance and the fate of those who dared. “Before the Fall” is a different sort of movie—a personal story of a teenager who goes from excitement at the prospect of being part of the Nazi elite to disgust at what he sees.
Max Riemelt plays Friedrich, a 16-year-old amateur boxer who in 1942 Berlin is discovered and offered the opportunity to go to a special Nazi National Political School, where he is expected to hone his boxing skills and help the school beat competition in ring matches. Friedrich’s working class father wants nothing to do with Nazis and tries to discourage him, but Friedrich runs off to seize his opportunity.
He becomes friends with Albrecht (Tom Schilling), the son of a Nazi bigwig, and both lads become increasingly alienated from what they see and experience. The breaking point comes when the students, under stern discipline, are forced to participate in the massacre of young Russians. It is crisis time for both Friedrich and Albrecht.
Director Dennis Gansel, who wrote the screenplay with Maggie Peren, keeps the film taut and intimate. There is some resemblance to other films dealing with school rigidity, but the stakes are especially high in this one, and Gansel creates an atmosphere that seems very real. The story has it predictable side, but the sincerity of the acting and the director’s solemn approach make “Before the Fall” dramatically effective in opening yet another window on the Nazi nightmare. A Palisades Pictures release.
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