Susan Granger’s review of “Amen” (Kino International)
Having made “Z,” “The Confession,” “State of Siege,” “Missing” and “Music Box,” Greek-born filmmaker Konstantinos Gavras, known as Costa-Gavras, is recognized as one of the most influential political filmmakers in the world. In this new English-language thriller, he collaborates with writer Jean-Claude Grumberg in loosely adapting Rolf Hochhuth’s play “The Deputy,” which tackles the controversial subject of the Vatican’s failure to use its power and prestige to oppose the extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II. German chemist Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) is the unlikeliest of heroes. He was a patriotic SS officer assigned to supply Zyklon B gas, supposedly for decontamination, to prison camps. To his horror, he witnesses its use for the extermination of Jews and the sadistic glee of the Nazi officers in charge of this depravity. Conscience-stricken, he relates this atrocity to local Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders, pleading for their help to protest the fanatic anti-Semitic genocide. But the only clergyman who takes action is a young Jesuit, Father Riccardo Fontana (Mathieu Kassovitz), whose aristocratic father is close to Pope Pius XII. Together, Gerstein and Father Riccardo face perilous retaliation as they batter the walls of indifference. And Costa-Gavras effectively heightens the cinematic tension by repeatedly showing the death trains going to and from the camps. While the real-life Gerstein was one of the first Protestants to authenticate the mass murders, Father Riccardo is a composite of Catholic priests who tried to save Jews. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Amen” is an emotionally powerful 8, but we still know too little about why Pope Pius XII stayed silent during the Holocaust.
