And Along Come Tourists
November 3rd, 2007
Like Weltschmerz and Fahrvergnügen, Vergangenheitsbewältigung is one of those German words that don’t quite have an equivalent in other languages: “working-off-the-past” has been a national project for the last sixty-odd years; it stands to reason that no other country has a history quite as heavy with guilt and horror to cope with. To be sure, the Holocaust has been the topic of countless films, but precious few address the legacy of the most efficient genocide in history as it confronts us today. With And Along Come Tourists, writer-director Robert Thalheim has made an understated film about a particularly sensitive place where past and present collide with unforgotten atrocities: the present-day town of Oswiecim, Poland, site of the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Read the rest of my review of And Along Come Tourists on About.com. At the reception following the MoMA screening, I had the distinct pleasure of being mistaken for the director several times. MoMA is screening the film, which doesn’t have U.S. distribution yet, as part of its Kino! 2007 program. You can catch it tomorrow at 2pm. Related: Yella and Q*Bert at the Holocaust Memorial.
Am Ende Kommen Touristen. Robert Thalheim, 2006. ****
The German trailer:
Sophie’s Choice
August 13th, 2006
I’m still retching over how awful this was–total Holocaust Exploitation, every bit as shameless and hoaky as Life is Beautiful. Meryl Streep? “I stole a Ham, and they zent me to Auschwitz!” Jesus Christ. And Kevin fuckin’ Kline, whacky and crazy like he just popped over from A Fish Called Wanda? Give me a break. Sophie’s choice, three hours in the making, is a heart-wrenching moment (how could it not be?) but the movie that’s been constructed around it is an even worse atrocity. None of the historical details ring true, all of the sets and theme music and bullshit accents (Polish and Southern) make sure you can’t take this seriously for a second. Here’s the give-away: we don’t know anything about Sophie’s son or daughter; they’re not characters at all. Pakula uses them as shamelessly as the Nazis. And Sophie herself, once she initiated our Southern boy into the mysteries of sex and death, gets to die. What a load of hooey.
But I can’t stop saying it: “I stole a Ham, and they zent me to Auschwitz!”
