SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE FINAL DAYS by Marc Rothemund: Film Review
November 19th, 2005 by Andre Soares
Sophie Scholl - die letzten Tage / Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (2005)
Director: Marc Rothemund. Screenplay: Fred Breinersdorfer. Cast: Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Gerald Alexander Held
NO PLACE FOR IDEALISM
Directed with clenched fists by Berlin Film Festival winner Marc Rothemund, who seems to have been at least partly inspired by Robert Bresson’s minimalist Le Procès de Jeanne d’Arc / The Trial of Joan of Arc, Sophie Scholl - die letzten Tage / Sophie Scholl - The Final Days is an intense, unsentimental, impeccably produced retelling — from a screenplay by Fred Breinersdorfer — of the last days of the young female leader of the White Rose, the German resistance movement.
Set in 1943, Sophie Scholl chronicles the events that followed the arrest of Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) after they’re accused of distributing "subversive" leaflets at a German university.
As the young Sophie Scholl, Julia Jentsch, another Berlin Film Festival winner, gives the best female performance I’ve seen so far this year. Her Sophie is a steely eyed, relentlessly determined defender of freedom and justice, but one who, when not being challenged by Nazis, can let her guard down and act both vulnerable and frightened. (It should be added that Scholl was 21 when she was executed.)
But the most impressive aspect of Jentsch’s tour de force was the contrast between the on-screen Sophie Scholl and the pretty, blonde, unassuming, and self-avowed apolitical actress that showed up for a Q&A following the AFI FEST screening. Hers was a truly masterful transformation. (Obviously, director Rothemund and Sophie Scholl’s makeup artists also deserve credit for Jentsch’s metamorphosis.)
If there is any justice, Jentsch will be up for a best actress Academy Award in 2006, as the film opens in the U.S. next February. [Addendum: As so often happens with the Academy's choices -- especially when it comes to foreign-language films, no matter how deserving -- no such justice was made. Jentsch did, however, go on to win the European Film Award for best actress.]
Reviewed at the AFI FEST 2005
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