In this drama set in Eastern Europe in 1944, (Martin Landau) plays Josef Krauzenberg, a wealthy Hungarian Jewish business owner who, despite his fortune, finds his life hanging in the balance as the Nazi "final solution" is being enacted throughout Eastern Europe. Under the terms of the Third Reich's "Europa Plan," Krauzenberg arranges with Nazi leaders to exchange his fortune, his business holdings (textile plants, steel mills, ownership of several banks) and a collection of rare art for safe
passage to Switzerland for himself, his wife Rachel (Judy Parfitt), and their family. Such is Krauzenberg's wealth and power that when he agrees to sign over his property, two of the most powerful men in the Nazi regime announce they will come to his house to handle the paperwork -- Adolf Eichmann (Steven Mackintosh) and Heinrich Himmler (Danny Webb); however, as the Nazi leaders are ushered into Krauzenberg's home, they notice something unusual -- his two most trusted servants, Hans Vassmann (Kenny Doughty) and his wife Ingrid (Caroline Carver) are a married Aryan couple who are still working for a Jew despite the pogrom. As it happens, Eichmann and Himmler's suspicions are well-founded -- Hans and Ingrid are actually Jews working undercover with a team of resistance fighters, and as they serve the Nazis, they wonder if they should kill Eichmann and Himmler for the greater good, even if it would mean certain death for the Krauzenbergs and themselves. While The Aryan Couple is fictional, it was inspired by actual events, and the existence of the "Europa Plan" has been documented, though no one appears to have been saved from death through its application. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Mainly notable for its inappropriate, blithe sentimentality. In another film this would be the usual Hollywood hokum. In a film about the most serious subject imaginable, it amounts to moral idiocy.
It's a sucrose period piece that somehow averts its gaze from the brutal reality of Nazi genocide, and manages to conjure a fatuous feelgood happy ending.
Put-upon Jews weep on cue or stare defiantly into the camera, spouting impromptu speeches about getting some of their own back one day; all the while, violins wail in the background.
The Aryan Couple gets great mileage out of its tension and suspense, and its commitment to developing its characters as real people in an unthinkable dilemma.
he story loses its grip and momentum during the laboriously realized denouement, which follows the hired help's struggle to escape to Switzerland amid overwrought action sequences propelled by a shrieking violin-driven soundtrack.
Directed with the flat artlessness of a lower-rung Masterpiece Theater entry, pulling heartstrings with Igor Khoroshev's lugubrious score and scripted with banal bromides insulting to its subject matter.
I liked it. But I must say this kind of subject matter is very interesting to me. Like Anne Frank's Hiding place, Schindler's List. Any movie that depicts the struggles the Jewish people went through during WWII is interesting to me. It was a shameful time in history.
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