hitzzen

Judgment at Nuremburg is a well-made and well-acted film, with some stirring speeches. However, in the end it presents an incredibly rhetorical and propagandist perspective on these trials. For instance: there is a serious legal question as to the authority by which the US puts the Nazis on trial. Of course. what the defendants did was horrific, and they ought to have been held accountable for it, but was it illegal? By what law? By whose law? Shouldn't there be a distinction between acting against a Nazi law and acting against a moral law? Aren't we really looking at a sort of self-righteous 'victor's justice'? Shouldn't these questions be settled politically or by force, rather than with a veneer of pseudo-legalisms?

At the beginning of the movie, it seems sensitive to this question. The prosecutor seems over-zealous. The defense lawyer seems earnest. By the end, any opponent of the procedure of the trial (like the dissenting judge) is racist Nazi or an equivalently immoral patriotic American. Any subtle thought that, for instance, there is something funny about holding someone responsible for enforcing the laws of their own country is assimilated to racism and Nazism.

To add insult to injury, the movie can't even bear to have a heroic German figure. Janning, who gives the crucial testimony in the case, ends up trying to excuse himself in the end--in a way entirely inconsistent with his earlier speech and everything we know about his character.

Don't be taken in by this movie. It doesn't want you to think. It wants to bully you, with all the heavy-handed tricks a movie-maker has, into thinking that all patriots are Nazis and that legal niceties can be run roughshod over if some pure vision of morality demands it. It's really too bad, because the moral and legal issues connected with the trials are very serious and very relevant today.

This excellent film tells the story of a stubborn Spanish republican, Manuel Artiguez, who refused to give up the fight when his side lost the Spanish civil war to the fascists in 1938. The film takes place twenty years later, when after many successful raids, Artiguez has lost the will to continue. However, his adversary, a Spanish police chief called Vinolas, has not yet given up on capturing or killing him and sets a trap for him. The trap and the question of whether Artiguez will fall into it it will keep you on your seat for most of the movie. Three men caught between Artiguez and Vinolas, an informer, a priest, and an idealistic Spanish exile boy, add a rich psychological and moral dimension to the film, following themes of idealism, revenge, and the uses of violence.

"Behold" is a great thriller with highly complex characters and a profound moral sensibility. The idealism of Spanish republicans like the boy is on the one hand supported by the oily and hypocritical Vinolas, and on the other hand undercut by the rawness and violence of Artiguez. Neither of the adversaries is vindicated, but neither are they equivalent to one another. The ending will set you thinking for hours, if you're so inclined.

Performances by Peck (Artiguez) and Quinn (Vinolas) are great. Peck is less stuffy than usual. I'm not generally a fan of earnest, wet-eyed Sharif (the priest), but his performance here suits the movie quite well. I can still hear his voice saying "Did the informer escape? Is the bandit safe?"

My only complaint is that for all of its thematic complexity and richness of character the film is at times somewhat melodramatic and the dialogue is sometimes a little clunky. And for some reason its parts, good characters, good plot, good actors, all excellent, do not quite add up into a perfect whole. Nor is it as good as some of the movies it slightly resembles: Guns of Navarone, Battle of Algiers, Wild Bunch. However, it is definitely worthwhile for fans of 'thoughtful thrillers'.