Labyrinth of Lies (2015) [Blu-ray]
Drama | History

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Tagline: In Germany, 15 years after World War II, one young man forces an entire country to face its past.

Germany, 1958. In those years, "Auschwitz" was a word that some people had never heard of, and others wanted to forget as quickly as possible. Against the will of his immediate superior, a young prosecutor Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) begins to examine the case of a teacher who has recently been identified as a former Auschwitz guard. Radmann soon lands in a web of repression and denial, but also of idealization. He devotes himself with utmost commitment to his new task and is resolved to find out what really happened. He oversteps boundaries, falls out with friends, colleagues and allies, and is sucked deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of lies and guilt in his search for the truth. But what he ultimately brings to light will change the country forever.

Storyline: The year is 1958. The war has been over for thirteen years and the Federal Republic of Germany is not only recovering but even booming. But where are the Nazis? Who has ever heard of the death camps? It looks as if everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds in this land of milk and honey - At least, until the day journalist Thomas Gnielka reports on the recognition by a German-Jewish artist of a local schoolteacher, a former guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp - At least, until Johann Radmann, a young prosecutor, decides to investigate the case - Nobody knows it yet but this is the dawn of a new era. Even if the road to awareness will be long and rocky. Written by Guy Bellinger

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, February 11, 2016 Labyrinth of Lies explores the atrocities at Auschwitz, and the people responsible, in a time and place when almost nobody had ever heard the word before, even as the truth is fresh and the perpetrators walk freely amongst the populace. The film tells the story of one young, fresh-faced, wet-behind-the-ears prosecutor who dares to take on the forbidden subject, refuses to see a dark and violent past quietly swept under the rug, and commits himself to a cause much larger than himself. In that regard, it's not a particularly noteworthy movie. Movies and stories of lawyers defying the odds and rising to the challenge of taking on the impossible case abound, but few tackle a subject so ruthlessly dark and inhuman and important as this. The standard operating procedure nuts-and-bolts story elements don't inspire but they do nobly mix with a higher purpose, yielding a movie that's more emotionally powerful than it is dramatically gripping, a perfectly reasonable compromise for a movie that takes on such a darkly challenging subject.

Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) is an upstart idealistic and by-the-book prosecutor. He works petty cases but is always hoping for a break that could propel his career beyond the mundane. He catches that break when he hears about an ex-Nazi murder, a member of the Waffen-SS and key figure at Auschwitz, who is now teaching school. Nobody wants the case -- or to even hear of it -- but Radmann digs a bit deeper and finds himself immersed it, unearthing the recent history that's been quietly swept under the rug. Few know the truth about Auschwitz, never mind have any clue what happened there. Soon, Radmann is placed in charge of a wider investigation in which he learns firsthand accounts of the horrors that took place in the camp and targets, amongst others, the infamous Josef Mengele.

Labyrinth of Lies doesn't work on its procedural details but rather its emotional pull. Audiences won't be so much interested in the inside baseball details of the investigation but rather what the investigation means on both the intimate personal levels and the larger social implications of it. The movie certainly spends enough time establishing the journey and building up the raw details of the process, but that's all dwarfed by the much more significant narrative that builds as the story of what happened at Auschwitz comes into focus, often in details painful for the audience to hear and certainly painful for the characters to introduce, share, and by strength of the performances, relive. The movie's single greatest triumph comes from the way its cast demonstrates a believable emotional resonance with the stories. It's not about facts and figures on pieces of paper but the very visceral, raw testimony that, the audience believes, truly does hurt the characters, both those who experienced it and those who merely hear it alike. The film refrains from hammering home its point in flashback scenes that depict the deplorable conditions at the camp. The spoken word is enough, and it's arguably more effective to bear witness to the lingering, deep pains than to see the pains of the moment in full detail.

The film's emotional draw is supported by excellent workmanship and performances. Director Giulio Ricciarelli is rightly content to sit back and frame the action without drawing attention away from it. The movie is attractive in its simplicity and ability to maximize location while minimizing visual intrusion into the narrative. On the other hand, his script, which he co-wrote with Elisabeth Bartel, doesn't always maximize potential. The movie's key emotional moments are well done, but much of the technical and cruder plot advancement elements fail to command the same level of vivid detail. Much of that is the movie's narrative focus and its more deliberate build, but at two hours the more mundane, procedural scenes sometimes bog the experience down. Performances, however, range from solid to soaring. Lead Alexander Fehling demonstrates superb range and a firm grasp of both the character's personal growth and journey and understanding of the burden he carries as the man at the center of the investigation. It's compelling work and, even if his center storyline isn't particularly novel, his ability to evolve it both on his terms and on the story's terms is impressive. He quickly loses that young, idealistic glow about him but maintains the same level of curiosity and determination, though more vulnerable to the ways of the world as the process emotionally weighs him down and erodes his early film bubble from which he wishes to escape.

Labyrinth of Lies creates a deep emotional connection between the horrors it recounts and its characters and audience alike. Much of the rest of the movie is made of rather standard stuff, but the picture's thematic currents, as well as steady direction and strong performances, carry it to satisfaction. Sony's Blu-ray offers a standard allotment of extra content in support of excellent video and audio. Recommended.

[CSW] -4.4- This reviewer said it better than I could:
Absolutely amazing. The movie showed the tremendous issues facing Germans and their Nazi past. How do you reconcile being human and having the unspeakable crimes attached to your legacy? How do you deal with a father that served that barbaric monster Hitler? How do you face the victims of Auschwitz and not deal with the wrongs? How does one being German not do something to cleanse the screams of the innocents from your mind who died horribly? I think the movie did much to show what Germans, good Germans, tried to do to make things right.

[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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