"God afton, herr Wallenberg" is perhaps one of the most bleak films I have ever seen. Even though it's a good film, I feel that it is very depressing and hard to shake off after you have seen it. The cinematography enhances this feeling brilliantly. The colours are bleak, the people are bleak, and the story (based upon real events) is bleak. A very depressing movie experience, but nevertheless a very well-made film, and Stellan Skarsgård is as brilliant as always.
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AKS-621 April 2000
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SnoopyStyle10 November 2015In 1943 Hungary, Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg (Stellan Skarsgård), traveling on the train, is shocked to see Jews being killed and transported. In 1944, Wallenberg is reluctantly recruited to save the remaining Jews. In Budapest, he is the only hope for some twenty survivors in an apartment building against Nazi fanatic Ferenc Moser. The Russians are closing in. Though lies, bribes and audacity, he struggles to save the remaining 65,000 in the ghetto who suffers from one atrocity after another.
This is an amazing true story. Stellan Skarsgård does an amazing job. The plot is split between the original twenty and the thousands in the ghetto. I think it could be more intense if he goes from place to place without concentrating on a specific group of Jews. It could be a rolling trip from hell as he tries to stop one atrocity after another. -
sbchelldiver26 January 2008Yes it is a very bleak story...but then taking into account that this happened in a besieged city with a De facto occupation frequent air raids fanatical right-wing mobs roaming about the fear of the Soviets falling on the town any moment and to top it all fanatical Race Crusaders exemplified by Adolf"Guten Abends Herr Wallenberg!"Eichmann...well...this ain't exactly Pollyanna!Raoul Wallenberg was definitely the classic "stuck between a rock and a hard spot"kind of guy...sadly he was what we would now call a collateral victim of the bigger realities of politics and yet he represents the best of Humanity...Go figure-Carlos Aneiro
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agnes220cpw7 February 2023Raul Wallenberg trafels on a train in Hungary in 1943 when he sees through the window another train on an opposite track. Dead bodies are thrown off that train like garbage. Than a boy, whose father jumps after him. Both are killed by the German. The date, I repeat, is 1943. Germans invaded Hungary in March 1944. Trains shipping Jews to Auschwitz had not yet happened in 1943. It is a sign of gros negligence by the researchers who made this error. It is most likely that very few viewers realize this, only those more well versed in those event or those who were in Hungary at the time the action of this movie takes place.
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lanzarishi2 January 2013I cannot believe that only 2 viewers have commented (3 incl, me) on this incredible film. The acting is superb, the story is phenomenal and the sheer relentlessness of this film is a sight to behold. Stellan Skarsgård is so incredible an actor. He portrays Mr. Wallenberg excellently. The Eichmann character is only seen for seconds yet his presence is felt throughout the entire film. This I found to be very convincing. It is for shame that it hasn't had more acclaim, critical or otherwise. See it! Up there with any film relating to the Holocaust. It is unfortunately very hard to download from free sites and unless you speak Swedish you'll have a hard time understanding it unless it is seen with subtitles. You will not be disappointed.
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I review this movie having watched it diagonally (as we say in french)but I have downloaded it and I'm adding English subtitles to follow the story correctly.
Anyway as a previous reviewer says it's a shame to see how such a story is not viewed by a greater audience.
These are facts without the usual melodramatics so consciously added by American directors.
Perhaps the movie should have been more explicit in the end credits about the facts that it is proved now that the Soviets have murdered that man although they pretended it was not the case. From the beginning his arrest was unlawful and the attitude of the Russians should have been condemned strongly.The allies did not want to hurt the Russians and observed the same attitude they had with the Katin murders.
But what can we expect from a country which is the equivalent of the Nazi regime and which has not change since the Stalin period in spite of their denials?
Today the only remaining interrogation is when did Wallenberg die. There are still searches but they are impaired by the obstacles put to the researchers to consult properly all the archives available and of course many compromising ones must have been deliberately destroyed...
Personally as I wrote in the forum, I feel terribly concerned by those events, my grand parents having disappeared in 1944 in Budapest while the Nazis were fleeing the country.
Altogether, the different scenes I've watched show these events coldly and the actors are very convincing in their different parts. -
lee_eisenberg29 December 2021Raoul Wallenberg might not be one of the most recognizable names, but he was responsible for one of the noblest acts in the 20th century. He saved thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary.
Kjell Grede's "God afton, Herr Wallenberg" ("Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg") focuses on this, with Stellan Skarsgård playing the Swedish diplomat. The movie - Sweden's submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film that year - casts him as someone who initially didn't take much in the events across Europe but soon realized that he had to take a moral stand. As the recently deceased Desmond Tutu said, neutrality helps the oppressor.
Excellent movie. Definitely see it. -
skepticskeptical2 April 2020I am of the opinion that holocaust films should not have happy endings. The holocaust was a moral horror story, and for that reason attempts to impart ¨feel good¨ endings to films (as in Life is Beautiful and Schindler´s List) strike me as misguided.
No worries here! Good Evening Mr. Wallenberg is about as bleak as they come. The story comprises a long concatenation of atrocities, but true to the history of what actually happened, incredibly enough. As far as cinematography is concerned, I loved the use of color, a wash of blackish blue and tealish green over the whole production helps establish the appropriate tone. With all of the corruption and wanton destruction of life, the film is rather depressing, and the fate of Mr. Wallenberg even more so, given how hard he strove to save people against all odds in Budapest. According to the final rolling text, Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Russian government and apparently never released.