The Boys From Brazil

 

Franklin J Schaffner, 1978, USA/UK

 

“Who would believe such a story?” Liebermann (Lawrence  Olivier) asks at one point. Well...

Schaffner’s adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel goes globe-trotting, and stacks set-pieces and villainy as if James Bond might pop up at any moment. The ingenious central idea – cloning Hitler! – is full of morally challenging questions, yet when this could have been a chilling and threatening film, it is simply an engaging but silly thriller sci-fi. The premise wins brownie points for sheer absurdity, but this is severely compromised by broad representations of nationalities and some dodgy accents (“Do you not understand English, you arse?” in the most snobbish and ridiculous London clipped affectation you can muster, for instance). Of course, the cloning premise is perhaps not quite as unlikely as it may have seemed in the Seventies, but there is little grey area here.

 

But then there’s the showdown. The two old actors – Lawrence Olivier and Gregory Peck, no less, bringing hints of mainstream respectability – set eyes on one another, snarl and then start biting chunks out of one another until bloodthirsty Dobermans break up the fight; then Hitler himself walks in, sees the bloody mess and starts taking photographs. It’s a wonderfully over-the-top, grand guignol moment that’s worth the price of admission alone.

An engaging enough actioner, but a missed opportunity and certainly of the era.

"I, Mengele" by Philip Challinor

 

 

Philip Challinor’s book superficially looks like the real deal: one in a series studying cult films that spotlights a single example, discussing its conception, content, reception and context. Except the film is called ‘I, Mengele’, the publisher is the  British Regional Film Foundation (a co-ordinated regional subsidiary of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) and the context is a world where Hitler won World War II. This film is an epic blockbuster for an audience where The Final Solution is a reality and you had best make sure your ancestry holds up to scrutiny. There is nothing in the packaging to refute this.

‘I, Mengele’ (the faux-film) is a Josef Mengele biopic, which affords Challinor with plenty of jibes at the expense of the film business: pokes at ‘Schindler’s List’ and the fascist readings of ‘Lord of the Rings’, for example; there are jokes using others, such as Cronenberg’s‘The Brood’, and reinterpretations of classics such as Shelley's ‘Frankenstein’. All this in passing but spoken of in a manner familiar to any who reads about films and all of it false. Challinor has utilised alternative universes before, for example in ‘The Foundations of the Twenty-FirstCentury’ in which he uses the ghost story to highlight Nazi guilt. He is a writer that uses alternative realities to show the likely outcomes of certain political and/or religious agendas – a satirical tradition that can at least be traced back to Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’ – perhaps most chillingly in ‘Security’.  Like ‘Security’, ‘I, Mengele’ shows how language can assist in making the unspeakable justifiable and normal given another context – particularly in this medium of the film study whose very casual academic leanings surely makes what it leaves unspoken (a Nazi dominance) more unsettling. For example, he quotes from faux-film reviews from newspapers which indicate, through opinions, that the Third Reich’s doctrine has been assimilated into popular culture; but those dissenting views are simply other attitudes to the film.

It soon becomes apparent that the black humour of ‘I , Mengele’ reveals something of how propaganda works, of how narratives help make all things palatable. For example, what at first might seem a gag at the expense of David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’[i] quickly fits into the body-horror that emerges through the plot of ‘I, Mengele’ where the enemy are literal monsters who do give birth to other literal monsters, and probably in monstrous ways. In this way, it is no mistake that Challinor makes this film a cross between biopic and fantasy epic, a natural progression from using fiction to make the enemy inhuman. By the time we reach the point where Mengele is regarding 'Frankenstein' and ruminating that one day it may be possible “simply to breed appropriate monsters for entertainment purposes and spare normal actors the inconvenience of heavy-make-up”, we are in a world where the Nazi vision of eugenics defines how this culture sees evolution.

The plot of ‘I, Mengele’, apparently follows the troubled-and-flawed-but-ultimately-heroic-protagonist narrative. Troubled by what he sees as his own potentially degenerate gypsy features, Josef  Mengele nevertheless gives all to the Fatherland with his experiments, at the expenses of his family. With this and descriptions of how the creators and industry make Mengel’s character fit more popularist dramatic and stereotypical forms, Challinor slyly makes us look at the tropes and narrative types that dominate culture and propaganda: perhaps we are left questioning the tropes that take what might be seen as heinous actions and makes them heroic. The book mocks mainstream cinema hubris whilst emphasising how it aids xenophobic stereotypes.

Challinor’s conceit gets to show his more playful, sardonic side and the slender length means it is not allowed the chance to outstay its welcome. Right to the end, it keeps the quips coming (note the faux-bibliography that includes the book ‘Musn’t Grumble: The British War Film from Empire to Defeat’, for example). It is a scathing satire and a delight for those who read about film and fiction for fun. Darkly funny, scary, thoughtful and clever.

Buy "I, Mengele"

Philip Challinor's The Curmudgeon

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[i]               “…The Brood, a family film based on the story of Magda Goebbels and her children”: this is a satisfying gag parodying David Cronenbergs classic horror, itself a twisted version of those themes made popular by films such as ‘Kramer vs Kramer’; but it also infers the context where this is would not be a joke as well as containing a scornful criticism of Magda Goebels.