A little knowledge

Rating: 9/10 (26 April 2014)

For those of us who remember the classic cinema MGM did a great anti- Nazi film in 1940, The Mortal Storm. One of the memorable scenes from the film was the book burning scene with young Dan Dailey intoning all the names of the authors the Third Reich was now banning. Nazi book burning is the theme for The Book Thief, that and one young girl's thirst for all this knowledge that the state says she must not have.
Young Sophie Nelisse goes to live with foster parents Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson after her birth mother gives her away. It is mentioned that the birth parents were Communists and that their fate was not good once the Third Reich got established.
At the book burning scene here which seems to have been modeled on the one from The Mortal Storm attendance in the town was required for the ceremony and as is true in every culture with the young, you say something is forbidden you know kids will want to try it. So Sophie's parents feel the same way and in the basement they have an illegal stash of forbidden authors. The one she first zeroes in on is H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man. No doubt why he's forbidden, Wells being the British Fabian Socialist he was.
Sophie's parents also take in a young Jewish man who lives in their basement among the books. He's played by Ben Schnetzer and he and Nelisse form a bond with their thirst for knowledge, especially that which the state says they must not have.
Binding this film is Roger Allam's narration as the character of Death whom he says all will eventually meet up with him. As you can gather several people do have an encounter.
There are a couple of juvenile performances that are worthy of note. Nico Liersch is a kid next door who befriends Sophie and he's not quite buying into all the propaganda he's being fed. After seeing newsreels of the 1936 Olympics and seeing Jesse Owens, Liersch paints himself black and pretends to be the fastest man on earth.
That brings him to the attention of Levin Liam who is the prototype of the Hitler Youth. It's funny how bullies seem to have a natural affinity for certain groups. Nazis certainly had their share of them, people whose need to bully others is now given an ideological base. I wish we'd have explored his character a bit more.
The Book Thief is about ordinary people trying to live as best they can under adverse conditions, a state that stifles knowledge and the deprivations of war. The Book Thief shows as few other films I've seen that the thirst for a little knowledge will never be quenched.