Based on the novel "The Dark Room" by Rachel Seiffert, the German/Australian co-production "Lore" takes a look at post-World War II Europe from an unusual vantage point - not that of Hitler's countless victims but of his many rank-and-file supporters (one might say adorers) in the days immediately following his downfall.
Lore (played by the remarkable Saskia Rosendahl) is a young woman who is forced to flee with her parents and four younger siblings into the Black Forest when the Americans "invade" their country, arresting Nazis and Nazi-sympathizers and liberating the concentration camps. When the mother and father are eventually apprehended, Lore is left to struggle on her own to provide for herself along with her sister and three younger brothers (one a newborn) as they search for the home of their paternal grandmother.
The screenplay by Robin Mukherjee and director Cate Shortland challenges the audience by asking us to empathize with a main character who is an unapologetic supporter of Hitler and a confirmed anti-Semite to boot (even if we sense it is a result of her background and upbringing). In fact, most of the people she encounters on her journey share similar delusions about their dear leader, whom they clearly still worship even in death. They've even convinced themselves that all these pictures they're being shown of the concentration camps is mere staged "propaganda" by the Americans - an attitude clearly designed to assuage their own guilt and deny their own complicity in the horrors their beloved Fuhrer brought about. This anti-Semitic philosophy is really put to the test when Lore and her siblings encounter Thomas (Kai Malina), a young Jewish man who claims to have spent time in a concentration camp and who helps the family in their struggles.
The writers clearly know that the audience, craving reassurance amid all the moral chaos, would like the characters' actions to be guided by an adherence to at least some type of moral code, yet the movie, aiming for a much more insightful and honest depiction of human nature, stubbornly refuses to cater to that desire. For instance, just as Thomas appears to be settling into the role of noble victim/savior, he goes ahead and commits an act so vile - if understandable in the context of the situation - that we are thrown back in a state of moral and emotional confusion - as is Lore. In a similar way, the relationship between Thomas and Lore remains enigmatic throughout, and, only towards the end, does Lore appear to be coming to terms with the fact that everything she's been taught and raised to believe in may, in fact, be a lie.
Yet, even with that slight ray of hope at the end, the thesis of the movie seems to be that there is nothing enriching or ennobling about war, and that when it comes down to a choice between survival and morality, survival will win every time. Morals and ethics, it appears, are fine when one has the comfort of civilization and the luxury of peace to accommodate them, but when one doesn't, it truly becomes a case of every man (and, in this instance, every woman) for himself. That may be a bleak and disturbing picture of mankind but, in the world of this movie, it seems a brutally honest one.
As director, Shortland consistently juxtaposes the ugliness of the characters' lives and situations with the lyricism of the photography and setting. The result is a though-provoking and artful addition to the litany of films about the Nazi era.
Lore (played by the remarkable Saskia Rosendahl) is a young woman who is forced to flee with her parents and four younger siblings into the Black Forest when the Americans "invade" their country, arresting Nazis and Nazi-sympathizers and liberating the concentration camps. When the mother and father are eventually apprehended, Lore is left to struggle on her own to provide for herself along with her sister and three younger brothers (one a newborn) as they search for the home of their paternal grandmother.
The screenplay by Robin Mukherjee and director Cate Shortland challenges the audience by asking us to empathize with a main character who is an unapologetic supporter of Hitler and a confirmed anti-Semite to boot (even if we sense it is a result of her background and upbringing). In fact, most of the people she encounters on her journey share similar delusions about their dear leader, whom they clearly still worship even in death. They've even convinced themselves that all these pictures they're being shown of the concentration camps is mere staged "propaganda" by the Americans - an attitude clearly designed to assuage their own guilt and deny their own complicity in the horrors their beloved Fuhrer brought about. This anti-Semitic philosophy is really put to the test when Lore and her siblings encounter Thomas (Kai Malina), a young Jewish man who claims to have spent time in a concentration camp and who helps the family in their struggles.
The writers clearly know that the audience, craving reassurance amid all the moral chaos, would like the characters' actions to be guided by an adherence to at least some type of moral code, yet the movie, aiming for a much more insightful and honest depiction of human nature, stubbornly refuses to cater to that desire. For instance, just as Thomas appears to be settling into the role of noble victim/savior, he goes ahead and commits an act so vile - if understandable in the context of the situation - that we are thrown back in a state of moral and emotional confusion - as is Lore. In a similar way, the relationship between Thomas and Lore remains enigmatic throughout, and, only towards the end, does Lore appear to be coming to terms with the fact that everything she's been taught and raised to believe in may, in fact, be a lie.
Yet, even with that slight ray of hope at the end, the thesis of the movie seems to be that there is nothing enriching or ennobling about war, and that when it comes down to a choice between survival and morality, survival will win every time. Morals and ethics, it appears, are fine when one has the comfort of civilization and the luxury of peace to accommodate them, but when one doesn't, it truly becomes a case of every man (and, in this instance, every woman) for himself. That may be a bleak and disturbing picture of mankind but, in the world of this movie, it seems a brutally honest one.
As director, Shortland consistently juxtaposes the ugliness of the characters' lives and situations with the lyricism of the photography and setting. The result is a though-provoking and artful addition to the litany of films about the Nazi era.