The Stage Under Das Boot

Rating: Null/10 (13 February 2006)

I have a friend that does something she calls "art therapy." So calls it art because it uses the same material artists do and produces similar artifacts. When other people do this, I accept it as art, meaning that I allow it to penetrate all of my inner selves it can and make whatever changes it may. After all, aren't all artists engaged with their work in messy, tearful, dangerous ways?
But with my friend, it is different. I know how she is damaged. I know why and a bit of how she produced her paintings. The artifact comes to me with that context. Her relationship to it is embossed on my relation to it, so it cannot dissolve into my soul. It only knows the pores of her soul. I suppose if I wanted to somehow re-enact her life it would be useful, but in truth, her stuff is useless to me. More than useless, because I can make art out of neutral found items, but hers aren't neutral.
One could say that I might see her demons, but I defy anyone to examine that closely and believe it true. It is not the nature of therapy to serve things for others.
I thought of my sad friend all throughout this film. Yes, it is skillfully produced in many ways. Yes, if you pull out this performance or that, you can admire decisions the actors have made. But films are not performances, they are narratives that resonate or not.
This is one of the grand therapeutic gestures the Germans are making to resolve the past and distance themselves from it. The twists of character, certain embellishments of phrase, placement of the designated watcher all got in the way for me. I knew that this was a dialog Germans were having with themselves that I was eavesdropping on and grasping for a reason why.
But having invested in it, both in time and emotional exercise, it does give me some value.
Hitler intuited the role of ceremonial theater, of defining the narrative for a people. He only allowed choreographed films and photos, and never in private moments when he wasn't performing. His most important adviser was Speer, a dramatist who found and designed the stage for the superman. Speer was the most effective dramatist in history, measured by immediate deaths at least. Speer and Reifenstahl created the first effective political propaganda film, a masterpiece by any measure.
Until the end, Speer as stage manager orchestrated the drama. He enters this story at the beginning, telling his man that he needs to be "on the stage when the curtain comes down." Later, when it really is, he visits his actor and tells him to spare the German people (which is denied as much as Hitler can). I get the feeling that this movie was as much directed by Speer to save the people as anything else he did.
So within the drama, we have the director, the designated watcher (our doubly seen stenographer), and historical characters playing not so much those characters but well established German stereotypes. All in all, the construction is clever, and the execution slick.
But it is therapeutic art. And we know it, and why it exists, and the specific damage associated with it. So even though it looks like art, it cannot be. It cannot change us.
See "Conspiracy" for something from this era that perhaps could. Shucks, I see my comment for that has been deleted.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
The film.