A dissenting opinion

Rating: 6/10 (27 November 2006)

This movie about a company of Polish actors during the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 does have laughs (Hitler's "Heil myself!") and it is intricately and cleverly plotted and plays well as an intrigue. But I had a hard time with the mixing of comedy within the context of a real setting. One minute we are witnessing an air raid on Warsaw and the next we have Carol Lombard imagining what a triumph it would be to play the role of a concentration camp victim wearing an elegant dress. Maybe that was meant to illustrate the dominance of personal ego even in the face of tragedy, but the mood shifts were too much for me.
The Nazis are made to appear as easily duped buffoons. Mocking the insanely serious using comedy can work, but it has to be done with some idea of a payoff other than a few laughs. What is the point of making a high-ranking Nazi appear a fool? Is such misrepresentation meant to give comfort in having those viewers in 1942 think that the Nazis would be pushovers? Is being made to believe that Nazis are easily persuaded by simple ruses a worthy goal? I don't see it.
I ask myself why this film and Benigni's "Life is Beautiful" seriously bothered me whereas I found Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" and Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" hilarious and trenchant. I think it is because the latter two are marked as satire from beginning to end, whereas the former two are stories set in a real time and place. While the targets of Chaplin's barbs in "The Great Dictator" are immediately obvious, the slight remove from reality makes all the difference.