Thoughtful and brooding film with excellent interpretations and horrible events . The picture talks an officer Gestapo named Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) in charge of Zyklon B , a deadly chemical gas used for killing Jews in the death's showers from concentration camps as Treblinka , Sorbibor , Auschwitz , Majanek , Manthausen ,.... , Gerstein contacts a Jesuit priest (Mathieu Kassovitz) who's related to a Vatican Cardenal (Michael Duchaussoy) and his father results to be Pope's assistant . He denounces and explains Pope Pio XII (Marcel Iures) the situation of the Jews's genocide .
The pic is correctly based on historic deeds and famous personages as Pio XII and Nazi chiefs who don't appear in the film but they're continuously named as Goering , Goebbles , Himmler , Eichmann ,thus as notorious events as Stalingrado (1943) where Nazis have the first important defeat and the bombing strikes over the Germany cities (Berlin , Dresde) . The movie is based on a play by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth which started a lot of heated discussions and arguments after its first release in 1963. The film blends drama , tension , historical events and in spite of the runtime is two hours and some isn't boring , nor dreary but happens enough interesting deeds . The Vatican did not give a permission to shoot the film in their buildings. After searching a scenery of adequate size for the scenes taking place in the Vatican, Costa-Gavras finally chose Europe's largest building, the House of the People in Bucharest . Some of the outdoor scenes were shot in Mogosoaia Palace, some fourteen kilometers northwest of Bucharest. The movie attained quite polemic but there's an accusation to Catholic Church for passivity on the crimes and mass slaughter . I really think that didn't have but lack of forecast . The motion picture was well directed by Constantine Costa Gravas who at all his films always gets controversy and dispute . Rating : Above average . Well worth seeing .
