Angel Studios is a production company that makes Christian-themed movies. Along with the seemingly requisite New Testament reenactments you also get things like Sound of Freedom, an action movie, according to their PR page, that’s about a “former government agent turned vigilante who embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue hundreds of children from traffickers,” which tends to sound more political in nature. This is the second Angel production I’ve seen centered on the true story of a German person who actively opposed Hitler during World War II. The first one, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin, was about a Lutheran clergyman who took his faith’s pacifist dogma as gospel and thus not only refused to serve Hitler’s war machine but conspired in his assassination. Like that movie, Truth & Treason has English dialogue (spoken by mostly English actors), presumably because its target Christian-leaning audience is not the subtitle-reading type. Also like the previous movie its dramatic thrust is difficult to resist.
Our hero is Helmuth Hübener (Ewan Horrocks), a member of the Hitler Youth whose precociously fine prose style earns him an internship at City Hall at the tender age of 16. We see Helmuth clowning around with his pals, all of whom seem to dig American jazz, which, of course, is verboten in 1941 when the film opens; but Helmuth also dislikes bullies, thus preparing the viewer for his eventual anti-Fascist development as a political thinker. At first, Helmuth dedicates his literary skills to the fine art of bullshit, but after his older brother returns from France with a contraband short-wave radio, Helmuth starts listening to the BBC and becomes completely converted, convinced that Der Fuhrer is lying to the masses. However, the straw that breaks the camel’s back is when he notices how his Mormon-Jewish friend, Solomon, is persecuted by his very own bishop. Helmuth then turns into an underground pamphleteer, clandestinely turning out anti-Nazi screeds on red paper and soliciting like-minded friends to post them all over town. These notes attract the attention of the local Gestapo investigator, Mussener (Rupert Evans), who launches an all-out search for the author, thinking, of course, that it must be an academic of some seasoning since the style is sophisticated. It takes him time to come around to the truth that the red cards are being written and distributed by mere adolescents.
Director Matt Whitaker employs a parallel narrative structure meant to rachet up the tension as Helmuth’s activities become more involved and Mussener slowly closes in. The story thus becomes a kind of detective tale on Mussener’s side and a breathless series of anti-authoritarian epiphanies on Helmuth’s, reinforced by the self-serving hypocrisy of the bishop of the Church of Latter Day Saints and the obvious use of torture against resisters to the Reich. In that regard, it’s effective as melodrama but deficient in introspection. All the characters’ motivations are right there on the surface so when the hammer comes down, it comes down exactly when and where you expect it to. Unlike with Bonhoeffer, in which the doomed protagonist is given plenty of opportunity to contemplate his small place in the universe, Truth & Treason gives us a hero whose overriding impulse to do right springs from youthful hubris. Ironically, it seems to be the older, more cynical Mussener, whose philosophical nature has been compromised by his loyalty to a corrupt state, who expresses the most human qualities in the face of Helmuth’s truth-telling. Helmuth remains a sincere Christian stalwart to the end—protective of his friends, defiant toward Nazi bullies—but comes across more as a scriptwriting construct than a genuine human being.
Now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978).
Truth & Treason home page in Japanese
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