A morally complex and emotionally satisfying drama about the vagaries of Catholic response to the Third Reich.
The Ninth Day (2005)
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:28
Rotten:6
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Fueled by tension-filled performances and dialogue, this Holocaust film brings up morally ambiguous, thought-provoking issues.
Theatrical Release:May 27, 2005 Limited
Synopsis: Noted German director Volker Schlondorff's (THE TIN DRUM) highly compelling THE NINTH DAY provides a unique examination of historical events that took place during the Holocaust. Interned at the... Noted German director Volker Schlondorff's (THE TIN DRUM) highly compelling THE NINTH DAY provides a unique examination of historical events that took place during the Holocaust. Interned at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich in 1942 for anti-Nazi activities, Henri Kremer (Ulrich Matthes), an influential Luxembourg priest, endures terrible hardships along with thousands of his clergymen. Mysteriously, Kremer is released and sent back home to his family in Luxembourg for nine days. Upon his return, the local up-and-coming SS chief, Gebhardt (August Diehl) charges Kremer with a difficult assignment: convince the Bishop of Luxembourg to sign an agreement with the Nazis, thereby providing an integral link between Hitler in Berlin and the Pope in the Vatican. These scenes between the young, eager Gebhardt and the older, stoic Kremer simmer with friction and meaningful import. The great challenge is that the Bishop, like Kremer, opposes Nazi racial doctrine. Failure to execute within nine days means a return to Dachau for Kremer and the endangerment of the lives of his family and fellow clergyman at the camp. However, while success provides assured safety for all those people, it also would represent the ultimate corruption of his own faith. Based loosely on the memoirs of Jean Bernard, a real Catholic priest, THE NINTH DAY is a complex and thought-provoking film. [More]
Starring: Ulrich Matthes, August Diehl, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana Beglau
Starring: Ulrich Matthes, August Diehl, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana Beglau
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Screenwriter: Volker Schlondorff, Eberhard Gorner, Andreas Pfluger
Producer: Juergen Haase
Studio: Kino International
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Reviews for The Ninth Day
Schlondorff's greatest tools in forging this character study is taste, balance, and a pro's inherent sense of dramatic construction.
A film that strives for meaning and resonance but doesn't quite work.
An absorbing Holocaust drama that suggests the forces that drive us toward good or evil are constantly warring within all of us.
In this cat-and-mouse Faustian fable, Mr. Diehl and Mr. Matthes are singularly fascinating as tension-filled incompatibles.
The true story of a Catholic priest from Luxembourg who must choose between cooperating with the Nazis or being returned to a concentration camp makes for a curiously uninvolving and emotionless film, considering the life-and-death issues it confronts.
A taut, dialogue-driven play that should be required viewing in college ethics classes.
A grim meditation on faith and betrayal that focuses on a relatively obscure corner of Holocaust history: the fate of the Catholic clergy under the Third Reich.
Credit a literate script and excellent performances by Ulrich Matthes -- tall and gaunt and wearing a wide-brimmed friar's hat -- as Kremer, and August Diehl as the Nazi bureaucrat and failed seminarian assigned to watch over the priest in Luxembourg.
In the face of the Holocaust, a wrestling match over which man is the likelier Judas strikes me as a trivial pursuit.
Digs beyond rote charges of ecclesiastical complicity and counter-arguments to explore various levels of resistance and protest and their consequences.
In Volker Schlöndorff's somber moral thriller, a Roman Catholic priest, temporarily released from Dachau, finds his conscience tested when the Nazis try to co-opt him.
This is moviemaking on the highest dramatic, psychological, and moral plane.
Plays best as a dry exercise in historical doublespeak and rationalization.
A much more intimate WW2 drama than Der Untergang, and even though it is not as strong, it is at least as interesting.
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