No one should think that this meeting was the beginning of the Holocaust. This was a meeting to draw everyone into agreement, so they could feel that destroying six million people was an honorable thing to do. Obviously, many had already been shot and asphyxiated and they just needed to do it in a cleaner, more efficient way. If the discovered transcript is indeed accurate, can one imagine being there and going along to the maniacal general's wishes. Branagh is as cold and calculating as anyone I've seen. At times he comes off as a "nice" guy. Stanley Tucci's Eichman, is the host and is even more frightening. Of course, he was hanged after being tried for war crimes, a major news story of that year. The excellent thing about this film is that like "Twelve Angry Men," we get to know the personalities of each of the participants and we get to know their motivations. Some are utterly disgusting, others cowardly. Their talk about what the Jews "are" is so sad, and knowing much of it was carried out is equally disturbing. That whole thing with the color of the bodies is so sick. If ants could talk and communicate, I would never willingly step on another one. How these horrible people dehumanized an entire culture, one that had given so much to the world, and, yes, to Germany, is beyond my comprehension. This is a really powerful film. See it.
Review of Conspiracy
