LORE – The Review

Review by Barbara Snitzer

Lore is not a typical Holocaust movie.  It’s not even a typical war movie, although both subjects are of paramount importance to its story.

It boldly portrays its protagonists, staunch supporters of Hitler and his Third Reich as sympathetic human beings.  It is a mind-opening experience to realize that his devotees were also victims, albeit in a completely different way than the Jews and others who perished in his systematic murder.

They were deceived, humiliated, and preyed upon each other like animals, nothing resembling the superior race of humans he proclaimed they were.

Lore centers on fifteen-year old Hannelore (excellently portrayed by Saskia Rosendahl) who is for all intents and purposes orphaned in the days after the Allies’ victory.  She must lead her younger sister, twin brothers and infant brother across the no-man’s land that Germany has become.

She has the good fortune to encounter fellow refugee Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina) who informs her that her mother’s directions to her grandmother’s house are useless as the Allied powers have divvied up the country and forbidden Germans from taking trains.

His motives are opaque, but he is less threatening than her fellow countrymen.  Their relationship reveals the degree to which Lore has been indoctrinated by the Nazis’ world view.  It is so deep that she clings to it ever tighter as her situation becomes more desperate, a situation created by her beloved Führer.  I realize I’m stating the obvious when I point out that this kind of brainwashing has victimized all nationalities and races of people, both the oppressed and the oppressors.

Lore is an excellent film, not because it takes a risk in its point of view, but because it’s a well told, moving story.  The child actors are not annoyingly precocious as they are in American movies; they are realistic and they don’t appear overly mature considering the gravity of the film’s subject.

While Saskia Rosendahl is as breathtakingly gorgeous as French actresses her age tend to be, her beauty is not exploited as is usually the case in French films; i.e. she’s not forced to do a gratuitous nude scene.

It is interesting just how multinational this production is:  the director (Cate Shortland) is Australian, her co-screenwriter (Robin Mukherjee) is British-Bengali, the movie is based on a novel by the British author  Rachel Seiffert, and the cast is German.

Lore was Australia’s official entry for Best Foreign Film for the 2013 Academy Awards and sadly did not make it to the nominee level.   It has, however, garnered a handful of awards.  At its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in Italy it won the audience award (the Piazza Grande), and it won four awards including Best Film at the Stockholm International Film Festival.

I think the best award Lore could win would be a box office return commensurate with its quality; we need more movies like this.

Lore opens in St. Louis today at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater