In the last moments of World War II, a young German soldier fighting for survival finds a Nazi captain’s uniform. Impersonating an officer, the man quickly takes on the monstrous identity of the perpetrators he is trying to escape from.
German filmmaker Robert Schwentke isn’t exactly known for incisive character studies. After a few low-key releases in his home country, Schwentke broke out in Hollywood with the generic Jodie Foster starrer “Flight Plan.” With each consecutive studio by-product — “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “RED,” “R.I.P.D.,” two “Divergent” chapters — the lack of a distinct directorial voice became increasingly evident. The man must have cast a retrospective look at his career in 2017, which prompted him to return to his homeland and make the atmospheric, brutal little indie that is “The Captain.” It may have taken him a half a dozen films to get there, but the end justifies the means. This one will haunt you for a while.
It’s two weeks before the end of WWII. Willi Herold (Max Hubacher) is a young German soldier on the run. On the brink of hypothermia, he discovers a Nazi captain’s uniform in the back of a crashed vehicle. Upon trying it on, Willi is instantly seduced by it; the uniform overwhelms him with confidence — enough of it to recruit the hapless private Freytag (Milan Puschel), who gradually becomes a symbol of Willi’s own deteriorating conscience. Before Willi knows it, three more men join his “crew,” and together they arrive at a decrepit concentration camp.
Minor Spoilers Ahead: This is where Willi gets the opportunity to truly unleash his psychotic tendencies, convincing the entire camp of his false identity and consequently executing every single prisoner. Things escalate — or rather plummet: spurred by Willi’s ruthlessness, humans turn into rabid animals, driven by sadism and titillation. When the artillery comes at the end, it resembles a cleansing of hell on earth.
The film could have easily become a gratuitous trip down a rabbit hole, a mere series of grotesque parties and heart-shredding acts of violence, perpetrated by an antagonist for whom it is impossible to root. Yet Schwentke has a tight grip of his reigns, making us complicit in the crimes, then distancing us enough to feel like helpless observers. His sequences shine with razor-sharp precision. Take the vacillating dynamic between Willi, fresh in his garbs, and uniform-hating men in an early bar sequence; or the harrowing “interrogation” of the camp prisoners; or Freytag’s final straw, when his last remnant of humanity gets stripped away. Schwentke indicts our predilection for barbarity, demonstrating how swiftly we get swept away by the allure of power.
He’s helped immensely by his lead. Hubacher’s Willi swivels from helpless victim to merciless villain with such gusto, the transformation — punctuated by intermittent glimpses of humanity — is shiver-inducing. The actor wisely lets his eyes do most of the speaking, avoiding the pratfalls of eccentric mannerisms or clear-cut emotions. The rest of the cast excels, particularly Frederick Lau as the vicious, forever-changed-by-war Kipinski.
Is it war that eviscerates all traces of our conscience, or is it merely an excuse for us to unleash that inherent savagery, to commit cruelty just because we are allowed because it makes us both more powerful and more in touch with our primal instincts? As cinematographer Florian Ballhaus’s camera glides over partying, rabid human swine — starkly and surreally caught in gorgeous black-and-white — those are the questions you will be pondering. The filmmaker is wise to set the film when he does when Germans were more and more ambivalent about the war, tired and on the brink of surrender. The power of the captain’s uniform was waning. Yet for someone like Willi, it held just enough power to take advantage of the surrounding dismay.
With “The Captain,” Schwentke demonstrates that when he’s unchained from the Hollywood system, he is capable of producing a wrenching, personal and effective drama. He clearly has a vision. Sadly, I doubt any of it will shine through in his next project, “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins,” currently in (I assume, COVID-delayed) post-production. Here’s hoping it’s just a side-trip. This captain should keep steering his ship into more enticing waters.
Available on Amazon Prime Friday, September 4th
