There's an irony of the worst criminals in history , those ruling the regime of Nazi Germany 1933-45 were so unremarkable , so much so that the phrase " The banality of evil " was coined for them . This film directed by Robert Young chronicles the interrogation of the most banal man of the Nazi regime Adolph Eichmann who was kidnapped by Mossad while he was living in Argentina and put on trial in Israel in 1961 . If Young has heard of the phrase banality of evil then he's taken it a little too literally because this is a rather banal movie
There are some good points such as the opening that has Muslim immans calling the faithful to prayer via loudhailers . Forget all the nonsense you've heard about Israel being an apartheid state because 15% of the Israeli population is Arab who are citizens of the country and are awarded the same rights as the Jewish population . On the subject of democracy the end credits has a voice over from Avner Less who describes the system that saw Eichmann commit his crimes would never happen in a democracy and that democracy is the only political system worth fighting for . The film also has impressive cinematography where the scenes set in 1960s Israel has a brownish sepia tone . It makes a nice change to see a film where the primary colours aren't prominent since films nowadays have an indistinguishable look
Nothing else about EICHMANN is distinguished and is a rather dull movie as we shown countless scenes of Less interrogating Eichmann as to his crimes . History has it that Eichmann was bullied at school because his peers thought he was Jewish and I would have liked to have seen the possibility that so many high ranking Nazis might have been of Jewish descent themselves . Instead we get something along he lines of a sleazy soap opera where Eichmann meets several hot high class women for sex including a Hungarian Countess . At any moment you're expecting Joan Collins to come swanning in to a scene where THE COLBYS meets SCHINDLERS LIST
And that's the problem . SCHINDLERS LIST has a monopoly on holocaust films . If you're doing a movie featuring the real life crimes of Nazi Germany then you have to bring something new and remarkable to the table and this bland banal drama doesn't
There are some good points such as the opening that has Muslim immans calling the faithful to prayer via loudhailers . Forget all the nonsense you've heard about Israel being an apartheid state because 15% of the Israeli population is Arab who are citizens of the country and are awarded the same rights as the Jewish population . On the subject of democracy the end credits has a voice over from Avner Less who describes the system that saw Eichmann commit his crimes would never happen in a democracy and that democracy is the only political system worth fighting for . The film also has impressive cinematography where the scenes set in 1960s Israel has a brownish sepia tone . It makes a nice change to see a film where the primary colours aren't prominent since films nowadays have an indistinguishable look
Nothing else about EICHMANN is distinguished and is a rather dull movie as we shown countless scenes of Less interrogating Eichmann as to his crimes . History has it that Eichmann was bullied at school because his peers thought he was Jewish and I would have liked to have seen the possibility that so many high ranking Nazis might have been of Jewish descent themselves . Instead we get something along he lines of a sleazy soap opera where Eichmann meets several hot high class women for sex including a Hungarian Countess . At any moment you're expecting Joan Collins to come swanning in to a scene where THE COLBYS meets SCHINDLERS LIST
And that's the problem . SCHINDLERS LIST has a monopoly on holocaust films . If you're doing a movie featuring the real life crimes of Nazi Germany then you have to bring something new and remarkable to the table and this bland banal drama doesn't