Lore delves into a time period little seen in film: the early days of Allied-occupied Germany. Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) is a fifteen year-old girl and the oldest of five children, the youngest of whom is a baby boy. In early 1945 her father (Hans-Jochen Wagner), who is a Nazi S.S. officer, comes home and frantically moves his family to the secluded Black Forest knowing that the Nazi regime will likely be defeated. Not long after he leaves the family Hitler commits suicide and the Allies capture Germany, and Lore’s distressed mother (Ursina Lardi), a strong supporter of Hitler, goes to turn herself in to the Allies and tasks Lore with bringing her siblings to their grandmother in Hamburg across an area now under martial law by the enemies Lore has been taught to hate.
Lore and her siblings are picture perfect examples of Hitler’s Aryan ideals: blonde, blue-eyed, and members of the Hitler Youth, and Lore carries herself with an ingrained sense of superiority above all others. Raised in the Nazi bubble, Lore has little regard for those outside of it but soon learns in order to survive the journey through occupied territory that she must begin to put her trust and the trust of her siblings in the hands of others, including several Christians and Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina), an older boy who Lore feels a conflicted attraction to despite the papers that identify him as a Jew. Nonetheless, Lore does come across like-minded people — and Lore seems increasingly aware that their collective refusal to believe in the evils of Nazism reaches degrees of self-delusion. As she learns of the horrors that her parents participated in, how can she hope to trust anyone ever again?
Rosendahl shows incredible talent at her young age. Since the film focuses on her, a lesser actress could have led the film to disaster. Thankfully that is not the case here, and Rosendahl exhibits the same strong stoicism that I saw in Nina Hoss in Barbara last year. Curiously, though the film was shot in Germany with a German cast it was directed by Cate Shortland, an Australian. Shortland — who also co-adapted the film with writer Robin Mukherjee from a novel by Rachel Seiffert — shows a remarkable talent for juxtaposition by tying images of life and death close together, making the end result of Lore’s journey with her family murky.
Movies about Nazism can sometimes be hard to stomach, especially since many of them serve as maudlin apologies from filmmakers who have no reason to apologize (it’s the Nazis, not the filmmakers, who had to apologize). It’s refreshing to see a movie from the point of view of a young woman who spent her formative years in the Hitler Youth that makes a profound statement within the context of the era. After all, Germany didn’t suddenly become a wonderful place to live once Hitler put a bullet in his own head — it took decades for the German people to recover.
With that in mind, Lore is a startling film. On occasion it does descend into the sappiness that is almost inherent in coming of age films (especially films about girls discovering their sexuality), but the era the film is set in at least puts this in a brand new context. Of course, one has to be prepared to sit through a film that is filled with a hefty dose of hopelessness. While it isn’t exactly joyless, it can be tough to get through (particularly the last twenty minutes or so after a significant revelation). Lore deserves all of its many accolades over the last year, and audiences who enjoy this type of historical film will connect with it deeply.
Rating: A well-made historical drama on an era little seen in cinema (8/10).
Lore opens in select theaters February 8 from Music Box Films.
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