CONSPIRACY
UK/US, 2001, 92 minutes, Colour.
Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth, Ian McNiece?.
Directed by Frank Pierson.
Conspiracy is a telemovie, written by Loring Mandel, for an HBO and BBC co-production. It is based on the surviving documentation about the 1942 meeting at Wannsee, the meeting that decided the strategy for the Final Solution, leading to the Holocaust.
The film is set in a lavish mansion outside Berlin. Eichmann, played by Stanley Tucci in a Golden Globe-winning award, is seriously and fussily arranging everything for the meeting: the room, the atmosphere, the music, the meals. The meeting is to be chaired by Heydrich, the author of the Final Solution. Kenneth Branagh, in an extraordinary performance, portrays Heydrich as a combination of external charm, wit, businesslike organisation and inner ruthlessness.
The film has a strong British cast portraying the various members of the Wannsee conference. Many of them are from the SS, many are governors in various provinces of the New Reich from Poland to Czechoslovakia. Others are bureaucrats who have been administering the practical detail of the Third Reich and are ambitious to retain their positions.
As the guests assemble, we see how young they are, the background of their experience, their racial prejudice especially towards the Jews, their commitment to Nazism and the Third Reich. We also see their ruthlessness and their ambition for power. They are ignoring any sign that the Reich might be overcome by the Allies.
The dialogue preserves the externally civilised conversations with their deadly intent. The comments about the Jews and their place in Europe, the fastidious condemnation by people who prefer listening to German classics (although Eichmann comments on Schubert's sentimentality). They are used to wealth, having meetings in luxurious surroundings. This means that the Wannsee conference was elegant on its surface, whereas it led to the extermination of six million Jews.
Various points of view are put forward, especially by those who feel that their position is threatened or who have at least some surface squeamish attitudes towards the extermination. However, by emotional blackmail, by peer pressure, by the wielding of power and authority, Heydrich brings the conference to the conclusion that he wants.
The film is chilling, showing the participants in the conference with their complete disregard for the justice let alone the emotional reality of what they were deciding. The epilogue indicates what happened to each of the participants, whether it be execution or punishment, suicide or, alarmingly, freedom with several of them living on into the 1970s. Heydrich was assassinated in Czechoslovakia soon afterwards and grim reprisals were taken. Eichmann, of course, administered the Final Solution.
1. The purpose of dramatising the Wannsee conference at the turn of the century and the millennium? Its impact on the 20th century, a warning for the 21st century?
2. The film's screenplay based on the surviving documentation and minutes of the meeting (despite Eichmann's attempts to control the documents)? The reality of anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, German attitudes, Hitler and his associates, the SS, the army, the eugenics profession? The contempt for the Jews and the judging of them as less than human, the innate jealousy and envy of their position in society, in banking and commerce? The verbatim comments of people like Heydrich on the Jews?
3. The film and the mansion, its wintry setting, the interiors, elegance and luxury, architectural beauty, painting and sculpture, the German classics playing? The atmosphere of German superiority?
4. The dramatising of the conference: Eichmann, the staff, the preparations, the arrivals, the introduction to each of the characters, their initial interactions, Heydrich arriving dramatically late, his breezy attitude, yet his steel determination in getting his way, the details of the meeting, various objections, the member who was ill, the bureaucrat trying to assert himself, the various power struggles in the SS as well as in the Berlin administration? The continued discussions, the logistics, the calculations, the cold attitude towards these logistics and paper statistics? The meal, the drinks, the conversations, people ingratiating themselves finally with Heydrich, the final vote? The various departures and the aftermath? The external-seeming normality of such a conference?
5. The character of Heydrich, his background, Branagh's interpretation? Dramatic flair, businesslike and efficient, his governing the Czechs, hatred of him, people's fear and jealousy? His handling of the meeting, talking over people, yet with charm? The final confrontations, the vote, his achievement?
6. The dramatics of the various interactions? The youthfulness of many of the members and their ambitions? The older members and their clinging to power and to ideology?
7. The reality of their decision-making, the influence on the coming years, Heydrich's death and the reprisals, Eichmann as the bureaucrat who managed the Holocaust? Eichmann as a character in the film, the background, his efficiency, his ruthlessness while being a simple and efficient bureaucrat? His trying to say the right thing, do the right thing? Eichmann as not being initially intended for the administration of the Final Solution?
8. The overall impact of the experience, condensed to 90 minutes? In the retrospect of the 20th century and the consequences? Looking to the 21st century?
