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That was an excellent one.

Just perfect...

Blistering performances.

"Das Zeugenhaus" is a German 105-minute movie from 2014, so this one is already over 2 years old. It was made by Matti Geschonneck, one of Germany's most successful small screen filmmakers these days and the script comes from Magnus Vattrodt, who adapted Christiane Kohl's novel here. The cast includes a variety of actors that are pretty well-known here in Germany. But sadly many of them are for the wrong reason. Iris Berben is probably the most popular actress in Germany still in her age group and I find her incredibly bland in everything she is in. She may have okay charisma and screen presence, but in terms of range, the core component for every actor, there is almost nothing to her. Finzi fits a similar description in terms of lack of ability and that he is much more known than he should be. But the biggest disappointment besides Berben are the young actors. Rosalie Thomass and Louis Hofmann are forgettable at best, downright cringeworthy at worst and this does not only apply to this film here. There are okay moments thanks to the likes of Moretti and Schneeberger for example or Brandt was well, but the highest highs of the movie are far from as high as the lowest lows are low if you understand what I mean.I find it baffling how this movie has received such a great deal of awards recognition, even by bodies that I considered capable of perceiving correctly what quality is and what is not. This film here is not. For the most part, it is an embarrassing Berben showcase sadly and there is one quote in the film that summarizes the entire project perfectly. The first scene when Moretti's character sees Berben they wrote him a line that tells me and everybody else how attractive Berben is (despite her age?) in a way that could have been for an embarrassing schmaltzy Rosamunde Pilcher film. Thanks to the topic, there are better moments when the film actually focuses on the characters and their backgrounds, but it just isn't enough. Not even close. This is especially disappointing because the subject offered so much more. It is about a bunch of witnesses who are apparently put together in a house before their testimonies at the Nuremberg Trials, the biggest war crime trials Germany has ever seen and they took place after World War II of course. Instead of making a memorable political thriller, the film lost itself in cheesiness and unrealistic character actions again and again. The actors also were underwhelming and never on a level where they elevated the sub-par material and at least made us think the general plot of putting all of them together into one location made sense. Extremely disappointing. Thumbs-down from me and this film is nowhere near the best Germany had to offer, not even if you only count small screen releases.

It's in German. It has "good" Nazis. It even says some nice things about Hitler. And it's a powerful film. Immensely powerful, complex and probing. It's great theatre but theatre on film rather than stage. As the Nuremberg trials got underway in 1945, the US occupation forces set up a residence (Das Zeugenhaus) for people who would be witnesses for both the defence and the prosecution. Some backed the Nazis. Some didn't. Some pretended they didn't. The whole thing was supervised by a Hungarian countess who was chosen for her discretion in a powder keg situation. The characters are complex, conflicted and deeply drawn. Nobody really is who they seem. The existence of the residence (and the countess) is historical fact. The story that unfolds within is fiction but so superbly done that it might have happened just as portrayed.. It's also to the credit of the German film makers that they approach the delicate subject of the Nazi era truthfully rather than with the sort of knee-jerk clichés all too common in movies about this ugly chapter of German history. This is a thoughtful, intense film, beautifully done in every way!.