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Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
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List Price: $29.99
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Manufacturer: Zeitgeist Films
Starring: Julia Jentsch, Gerald Alexander Held, Fabian Hinrichs, Johanna Gastdorf, André Hennicke
Directed By: Marc Rothemund
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0795975108331
Format: Color
Label: Zeitgeist Films
Manufacturer: Zeitgeist Films
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Zeitgeist Films
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-11-14
Running Time: 117
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
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Editorial Reviews:
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2005 Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Sophie Scholl - The Final Days is the true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to thrilling, dramatic life. Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch (of recent cult fave The Edukators) in a luminous performance as the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Armed with long-buried historical records of her incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence in 1943 Munich. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to her comrades, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Comment: Every once in a while, they make a great movie about a great person. This is one of those movies. Think about all of the things you worry about in your life, and all of the things you are afraid of in your life. And then think of a 21 year-old girl, a kindergarten teacher, who laid down her life to stand up to Adolf Hitler. This is a fantastic movie about the courage of that one girl and her compatriots in The White Rose movement who took a stand and defied Nazi Germany. It is a stain on the German people that resistance to the Nazis had to be led by children such as these. And it is a further stain that, even in post-WWII Germany, these patriot-martyrs were vilified as traitors. Only recently has a new generation of Germans come to honor and celebrate the heroism of Sophie Scholl and the other members of The White Rose. Julia Jentsch's excellent portrayal of Sophie Scholl is powerfully inspiring and poignantly heartbreaking at the same time. This movie is also a graphic depiction of how a police state like the Third Reich perverted justice and concluded that the beheading of a 21 year-old girl, for distributing anti-regime leaflets, was necessary to ensure its survival. Do yourself a favor and see this movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Guilty, yes, but the sun still shines for Sophie Scholl.
Comment: Marc Rothemund's superb 2005 German historical drama, Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage), chronicles the last days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old member of the underground student resistance group called the "Weisse Rose" (White Rose). In telling Scholl's story, Rothemund draws from survivor interviews and the transcripts of Scholl's actual interrogation and trial that had remained hidden in East German archives until 1990. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.
Julia Jentsch plays the title character, Sophia Scholl (1921-1943), a member of the White Rose non-violent resistance movement in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of treason for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans (played by Fabian Hinrichs). As a result, they were both executed by guillotine at the Munich Stadelheim Prison. Scholl's final words were, "the sun is still shining." She is now considered to be one of the great heroines the Second World War for her defiance of the Third Reich and for being an advocate of free speech. Scholl was a biology and philosophy student, who also took interest in art, music, literature, philosophy, and theology. As a member of the White Rose, Scholl pondered the question: how must an individual act under a dictatorship. In her short life, she bore witness to the atrocities of police spitting in the face of her Jewish schoolteacher, mentally disabled children being taken away to be euthanized, and the Jewish extermination camps. While under interrogation by Gestapo agent Robert Mohr (Gerald Alexander Held), who wears a little lapel pin proclaiming his Nazi patriotism, Sophie--guided by her Catholic conscience--challenges the status quo with her "treasonous" ideals that every life is precious, and that it is not for humans to pass final judgments on other humans. This long interrogation is the powerful heart and soul of this highly recommended film.
G. Merritt
Customer Rating:
Summary: A film of meticulous detail...
Comment: The magnificnt achievement of director Marc Rothemund and writer Fred Breinersdorfer regarding a "modern day" martyr is nothing short of riveting. No explosions, big sets, etc., but a simple display of a period in history that can only cause disbelief. Based on actual transcripts and interviews, Sophie's story is told in a concise fashion. Though not fast moving, it's ability to provoke thoughts is to be commended. I can only add to previous reviewers' comments that the acting is, without exception, perfect. Julia Jentsch IS Sophie, an innate integrity that shows often without saying a word. Her "banter" with Gerald Alexander Held, is compelling. Her cellmate, Johanna Gasdorf, is wonderful and supportive, and the performance of the handsome Fabian Hinrichs (as her brother) is also perfect. There isn't a weak link. A surprise nominee as Best Foreign Language Film brought this film to my attention, and I'm glad I was acquainted with the wonderul Ms. Scholl. DVD extras are fine, and though I know a little German, subtitles would've helped in some of the interviews. There seems to be a new rush of Holocaust/Nazi films lately (Counterfeiters, Downfall, The Lives of Others), all fine, and Sophie's story stands proudly among these, and is more accessible, if only for it's profound simplicity and straightforward narrative. It's unpleasant, but we really should never forget.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Subdued Horror
Comment: This is a brilliant film, which should be shown regularly.
Julia Jentsch gives a subdued and controlled performance in a understated film. The director deepens the horror of Sophie Scholl's predicament through a methodical presentation of her examination and trial.
The overall emotion of all the players is fear and the director conveyed that fear convincingly in his almost zen-like approach to the banality of the police and judicial system, which leads the viewer and Sophie to the singular mechanical horror of the guillotine.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the war
Comment: ***mild spoilers**********
The movie focusses on the exchange between the Nazi official interrogator and Sophie.
Their exchange illustrated a historical conflict that has been going on for at least the past 300 years.
There are those who are determined to create a new world order, and are willing to lie and intimidate and kill the innocent in order to create a society that will give the greatest happiness to the greatest number of a subset people who they consider worth it. (The Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, The Eugenicists, The Nazis....)
Then there are those who do not.
Here is a conversation from the movie
Girl: [talks about Nazis killing mentally retarded children]
Official: Their lives were not worthy. (worth living)....[talks]
Girl: No one, regardless of circumstances, can pass God's judgment. No one knows what goes on in the minds of mentally ill. You do not know the wisdom that can be bought from suffering. Every life is precious.
Official: You have to realize a new age has dawned. What you are saying has nothing to do with reality.
Girl: it has everything to do with reality. With decency, morals, and God.
Official: [exasperated] God! God doesn't exist!
I cried. The German official wasn't a jerk. He was a reasonable, logical, well-meaning man. And it didn't end in 1945. I think in the USA alone, 80% of Down Syndrome kids are killed before birth.
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