capsule : this is a film that avoids easy answers .
wilhelm furtwangler
, then the world 's greatest orchestra conductor stayed in germany and cooperated with the nazis .
what were his views , was he a war criminal or a secret resistance fighter ?
how much did he know about crimes against humanity ?
the us government investigated him after the war and this film is a dramatization of that investigation .
,
high +2 ( -4 to +4 ) in my opinion one of the best films of the last few years is istvan szabo 's sunshine , a film that covers the fortunes of a jewish hungarian family under the reigns of three different regimes , hungarian aristocrats , nazis , and communists .
szabo 's follow - up film , a german production , is much more limited in scope .
it is about the post - war investigation of who criminally supported the nazis and who opposed them .
ronald harwood 's screenplay ambiguously looks at the investigation of a great classical music conductor who stayed on in germany when the nazis took power and became the most popular conductor of the third reich .
maj .
steve arnold ( played by harvey keitel ) has been assigned by his superiors to investigate wilhelm furtwangler ( stellan skarsgard ) , perhaps europe 's greatest classical music conductor .
when other artists fled germany , furtwangler remained behind and conducted for the hitler and his henchmen .
after the war is over arnold assigned to interview furtwangler and members of his orchestra and if appropriate to prosecute him for war crimes .
he secretly is told by his commanding officer to find furtwangler guilty .
from there we follow him and learn a little about arnold and something about furtwangler and his orchestra .
as he interviews members of the wartime orchestra arnold starts noticing odd peculiarities that may or may not point to a conspiracy against his investigation .
there is a certain sameness to the responses that he is getting .
perhaps any cooperation he is getting
has been in some ways managed .
if so , perhaps he can never come to the truth .
in large part the film is about mind games that arnold uses to manipulate his interviewees and especially furtwangler .
where the script has problems is that in the end it is so ambiguous .
it has no obvious resolution and not much of a final act .
when it is over whether anything has been established is open to interpretation .
perhaps that is better than so many films
that make it all to obvious what the audience should believe , but it is like watching a murder mystery and never finding out who the killer is .
we are given clues to something
but they are never tied up .
in the end we just know more about both arnold and furtwangler .
the film is basically a stage play .
the visual is not very important .
corners are cut visually including touches like filling windows with photographs to avoid having to shoot on location .
as with a stage play , what this film centers on the dialog ,
and that is intriguing .
i rate the film an 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale .
[ there is one piece of sloppiness few people but me would notice .
at one point we clearly see arnold 's desk calendar say " jan 16 tues .
"
a quick mental calculation told me that combination could occur in 1945 and then not again until 1951 .
the events had to take place in 1946 or 1947 .
a possible date could be obtained from any world almanac . ]
that is better than so many films and that is intriguing