SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE LAST DAYS
Germany, 2005, 117 minutes, Colour.
Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Gerald Alexander Held, Johanna Gastdoif, Andre Hennicke, Florian Stetter.
Directed by Marc Rothemund.
For non-Germans, Sophie Scholl and the young opposition group to which she belonged, The White Rose, are not familiar at all. However, Michael Verhoeven and Percy Adlon both directed films about the movement in the 1980s. Since then, transcripts of the Gestapo interviews with Sophie Scholl have become public as have transcripts of the court proceedings where she and her brother and the writer of their statements were found guilty of treason. Marc Rothemund’s film is a reconstruction of incidents but, principally, a verbatim dramatisation of interviews and trial.
Julia Jentsch won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival as Sophie. It is a quietly commanding performance. A young woman courageously offers to distribute a paper critical of Hitler and the military effort after the debacle for German troops at Stalingrad. She is caught, interviewed at length by an expert interrogator, Hans Mohr. With her clear, succinct and plausible answers, she persuades him that she is innocent. When her brother is found out, she declares straightforwardly what she did and why. The trial is conducted by the notorious judge, Roland Freisler, who seems to be emulating the Fuehrer with his histrionic rantings.
There are moving sequences in the prison with her cellmate, the visit of her activist father and concerned mother, the final bonding of the condemned trio before she is guillotined.
This is a serious film, a film of words and body language, continually demanding attention. The sequences where Sophie draws strength from her Evangelical faith and prayer are reminiscent of the faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language category.
1. The impact of the film for a German audience? World audience? Those familiar with the White Rose and the German Resistance?
2. The background of the German Resistance, the young students, the White Rose? 1943, the fall of Stalingrad, the role of the Gestapo, the powers of the judges, the interrogators? The Nazi ethos and the Resistance?
3. The film based on actual interviews, verbatim use? The documents and the re-creation of situations? A verbal drama via interrogations and the trial?
4. 1943, Munich, the streets, homes and flats? The office? The university, the prison cells, the court? The musical score, the songs of the period – both American and German?
5. The opening and the introduction to Sophie, her girlfriend? The Billie Holliday song? The two girls, enjoyment of life – and the last five days?
6. The workers for the White Rose, the office, the duplicator, the envelopes and the statements, the stamps – and their being found? Hard work, the plans, undergoing the dangers in distributing the leaflets? The anti-war stance?
7. The Scholls, at home, the meetings, the plan, the brother and sister going to the empty university, leaving the papers at the doors of the rooms? The planned return, being seen by the custodian, mingling with the students leaving the lectures, their arrest?
8. The personalities of Hans and Sophie, their family background, the activist father, the older mother? Their experience, strong personalities, stoic? Ordinary citizens? The evangelical religious background and their faith?
9. Mohr as interrogator, his skills, devotion to Hitler – and the touch like Hitler? His assistant with the Hitler moustache? The range of interrogations, the verbatim use of the documents? His attitudes, beliefs? His psychological skills, his stances and the reasons for them? His suspicions of Sophie, finally believing her? Seeing him at the end, his sympathy, Sophie speaking to him?
10. Sophie, calm, arrested, her answers, her courage at the university? Her quick thinking and ability to explain every situation? Seeing her brother, being told her brother had admitted guilt, her wanting to take responsibility, changing her answers, ever more defiant?
11. Going to the cell, the attitude of the guard? Meeting Else? Their discussions, the different backgrounds, the bonds between the two, preparing Sophie for death?
12. The trial scenes, the judge and his fury, the inactivity of the lawyers, the officers in the courtroom, the public?
13. The accusations, the limits? The response of each of the accused? Their being broken? The plea?
14. Sophie and her writing her letter, the visit of her parents, their appeals, the embrace?
15. The preparation for the execution, Christoph Probst and his place in the group, writing the documents, his being married, having a family, wanting to live, the three having their final cigarette, the embrace?
16. The guillotining of Sophie?
17. The influence of the White Rose at the time? The impact of their story sixty years later?
