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FLICKS: The German Doctor & the importance of May 12

Posted on 15 May 2014 by LeslieM

By Dave Montalbano

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Nineteen years ago this month, when I was a Social Studies teacher at Loggers’ Run Community Middle School, my 6th grade students helped me produce A Tribute to the Men & Women of the World War II Generation. Besides listening to Big Band music, hearing a patriotic chorus with some goofy Three Stooges like stagehands, the assembly also had some serious moments. Tammy Greenberg read a letter written by Erika Hubert, who talked about her German childhood during World War II. Andrea Rajier read a letter written by her German grandmother who fled to Argentina during the rise of Adolph Hitler. Tammy and Andrea’s no nonsense performance brought tears to the eyes of cynical 6th Graders and several weary Middle School teachers.

As a journalist and information scientist, it pains me to see how important lessons of history are being forgotten by this new generation raised on video games and tablets, as if any news story three months old is considered ancient history. This is why a movie like The German Doctor is still being produced in these days of raunchy low budget comedies. This film was Argentine’s representative for best foreign film for the 2013 Oscar season.

It opens with a title sequence similar to a Guillermo Del Toro’s monster show … notebooks filled with sketches of human anatomy with charts and graphs written in German. It is as if we are reading The Secrets of Life written by Henry Frankenstein from those Universal monster movies from 80 years ago. We learn that these are the notebooks of Josef Mengele (Alex Brendemuhl), the notorious Nazi war criminal who specialized in genetic research using Jewish citizens as unwilling subjects.

Mengele befriends an Argentinean family and the secret Nazi becomes a fixture in the community. After doing a few good deeds and earning the trust of the family, Menegele is able to convince them to try his “harmless” serum that will prevent genetic defects. As the serum causes side effects, Menegele and his assistant accurately record and write about their scientific experiment.

Unlike Gregory Peck’s over-the-top performance as the hyperactive Menegele in The Boys from Brazil, Brenedmuhl is a silent, but charismatic predator. He has a good bedside manner with his patients, especially children. The true Menegele is revealed as he cold bloodedly writes about the genetic mutations he is causing with his “harmless” science experiments. Written and directed by Lucia Puenzo, this Spanish language film with English subtitles, features gorgeous cinematography with a dark story and noir characters.

As I write this, it is May 12, 2014, which marks the 40 year anniversary that my parents and I moved into Palm Aire at Coral Key in Lighthouse Point. While unpacking my stuff, the movie playing in the background was The Jugglar, one of the first movies to deal with post traumatic stress syndrome for Holocaust survivors. John Banner (Hogan’s Heroes Sgt. Schultz) and Kirk Douglas starred, who also produced this movie. Besides being the birthday of Florence Nightingale, Katharine Hepburn, Malin Akerman and Emily VanCamp, May 12 also marked my Mom’s 90th birthday.

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