BONHOEFFER: PASTOR.SPY.ASSASSIN IS A BIOPIC ABOUT THE GERMAN RESISTANCE
As a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (played by Jonas Dassler and Phileas Heyblom at a young age), the film has three subtitles to attract attention of filmviewers about someone long forgotten, but the story seems almost too contemporary.
Directed by Todd Komarnicki, the film shifts back and forth from his childhood to various times in his life to prove that he is an activist from an early age. Although born in Breslau (then Germany, now Poland), much of the early story focuses on his experience in New York City during the early 1930s, where he studies at the Union Theological Seminary and makes friends with African Americans, who impress him with the depth of their Christianity in Harlem, particularly Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (played by Clarke Peters) of the popular Abyssinian Baptist Church. He is the only White amidst Blacks in various religious congregations. One time he registers for a night at a hotel, leaves to get his Black friend, Frank Fisher (David Jonsson), and then the two show up to occupy the hotel room, only to have the owner use a gun head on Dietrich and the muzzle on both so that they will leave. Dietrich has thereby established himself as a civil rights activist.
He decides to return to Germany in 1931 (though most filming is in Limerick, Ireland) as a lecturer in systematic theology at the University of Berlin, unaware how the political climate has changed. His pastor friend advises him that going along with the Nazi agenda is the smartest response in a country that overwhelmingly embraces the Hitlerian agenda. Bonhoeffer is shocked by what he hears and persuades him to change his views. Then one day, when Bonhoeffer eloquently speaks from the pulpit of the national cathedral, he explains why Nazi actions are in full contradiction with Christian principles while the church has become “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Previously, he indicated that Jews are “our brothers,” and that there is no “Jewish question,” but now as speaks, Nazi police walk out in protest, the rest of the congregation applauds, but he realizes that he must join the resistance movement, particularly after a Nazi rewrite of the Bible is released—the Hitler Bibles with two new commandments! The film does not reveal all the complexities of Bonhoeffer’s efforts, but tries to do so.
One day Bonhoeffer swears allegiance to Hitler in order to get closer to the leader, whom he believes must be assassinated. The plot thickens but eventually he and the resistance movement are uncovered, and they are arrested. In the last scene Bonhoeffer courageously walks up to the gallows, though the film ends before a Nazi presumably puts the rope around his neck and removes the plank.
But as the film unfolds, Donald Trump reveals his agenda, and many parallels emerge. Who in the Christian church has the courage to stand up to Trump? Is assassination really the answer when the problem is that a majority of the country appears totally brainwashed? If a citizen were to leave the United States to live abroad for three years, would they not upon their return encounter a “foreign country”? While filmviewers ponder the uncomfortable answers, the Political Film Society has nominated Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin as best film exposé of 2024.