THE LAST SENTENCE EXPOSES HOW A HITLER CRITIC WAS FINALLY CENSORED
In a biopic about Professor Torgny Segerstedt (played by Jesper Christiansen), The Last Sentence (Dom över död man) reveals how his burning hatred of Adolf Hitler nearly got Sweden into war with Nazi Germany. With finely crafted editorials, he incurs the wrath of Hermann Göring, whom he avers was once a drug addict in a Swedish mental institution. While others in Sweden foolishly believe that Hitler could be tamed before the calamity of World War II, the professor-cum-editor-in-chief courageously pens the opposite, starting in 1933. Although he wants to keep writing in as caustic a manner as possible, Segerstedt is urged otherwise by close friends, including the foreign minister, the prime minister, and even the king (Jan Tsielius). Indeed, persuasive arguments seem as eloquent as his editorials. Directed by Jan Troell, the dialog does not explain how Swedish diplomacy cleverly managed to maintain neutrality, having been sandwiched between Soviet-occupied Finland and Nazi-occupied Denmark and Norway. Meanwhile, filmviewers learn that his personal life is complicated by a sexually frustrated wife (Ulla Skoog), dalliance with the Jewish owner of the newspaper where he works (Pernilla August), and ghost appearances of his mother (Johanna Troell). Filmviewers are tempted to infer that his secret life drives his compulsive writing. The black-and-white retrospective, based on the autobiography by Kenne Fant, has been nominated by the Political Film Society as best film exposé of 2014. MH
APES DISLIKE WAR, BUT DO HUMANS?
“They’re animals and they attacked” is the simplistic justification for Dreyfus (played by Gary Oldman) to launch war in The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves. Just substitute Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis for “animals,” and the film would be accused of partisanship. But filmviewers will instead enjoy the fantasy of a world that continues from the latest in the series (apes break out of their cages to escape experimental cruelty, they carry a deadly virus, millions of humans die, and apes multiply and colonize Mt. Tamalpias outside San Francisco). Some humans are left, resistant to the virus strain, and they hope to get electric power from Alpine Dam, so they send a team, the first humans observed by the apes in a decade. The ape power structure is now divided between peaceloving Caesar (Andy Serkis) and warlike Koba (Toby Kebbell), both of whom learned English and sign language in the lab. When one frightened human kills an ape, Caesar stops any rush to war, and he assists humans to get the dam working. However, Caesar is shot by another human who does not understand the ongoing simian-human cooperation. Boga then brings war to the humans in San Francisco and captures humans and followers of Caesar as prisoners. Humans, meanwhile, are helping Caesar to recover from the serious wound, and he must reassert his power position to stop the war. Dreyfus then articulates the quote above to the dismay of Malcolm (Jason Clarke) who has just helped Caesar recover. The film ends on uncertainties, as an “Iraq War” looms, so another in the series is doubtless being written today. MH
A COFFEE IN BERLIN IS BLACK WITHOUT CREAM OR SUGAR
Director Jan Ole Gerster, born in Hagen near the French border, has had enough of the rudeness of Berliners. So he has made A Coffee in Berlin to expose overly aggressive characters throughout the city, while his hero, Niko Fischer (played by Tom Schilling) puts up with it all phlegmatically, having dropped out of law school, unable to take the next step in his life while encountering other postadolescents acting like adolescents. Although he seeks a cup of coffee, he finds the price too high and a vending machine out of the elixir. But is coffee consumption the reason for all the narcissistic aggressiveness? MH