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German Doctor (The)
Original Title
Wakolda- Director: Lucía Puenzo
- Writer: Lucía Puenzo
- Producer: Nicolás Batlle; Stan Jakubowicz
CGiii Comment
The true story of an Argentine family who lived with Josef Mengele...
Beautiful to the eye, chilling to the ear...but, sadly, lacking in an expected intensity.
The opportunity and talent was there (in abundance)...to make a truly exceptional film about a truly 'extraordinary' man...the Auschwitz Angel of Death. Yet here, his story is incomplete - perhaps, flashbacks of the Auschwitz experiments would have helped establish the monolith of his criminality - especially for an audience who know nothing of Mengele.
Instead, we are served a curious dichotomy - angel or demon??? Where controversy could have exploded all over the screen...unfortunately, Puenzo backs down.
Imagine the furore...Mengele's altruism. Now, that would have had people screaming at the screen...wailing at such an implication - making it a far more memorable film than it is.
Shame. But...still a fine film with perfectly pitched performances.
There is no LGBT interest other than Puenzo's rather impressive back catalogue.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Patagonia, 1960. A German doctor (Alex Brendemühl) meets an Argentinean family and follows them on a long desert road to a small town where the family will be starting a new life. Eva (Natalia Oreiro), Enzo (Diego Peretti) and their three children welcome the doctor into their home and entrust their young daughter, Lilith (Florencia Bado), to his care, not knowing that they are harboring one of the most dangerous criminals in the world. At the same time, Israeli agents are desperately looking to bring THE GERMAN DOCTOR to justice. Based on filmmaker Lucía Puenzo's (XXY) fifth novel, the story follows Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death," a German SS officer and a physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp, in the years he spent "hiding", along with many other Nazi's, in South America following his escape from Germany. Mengele was considered to be one of WWII's most heinous Nazi war criminals.
Cast & Characters
Natalia Oreiro as Eva;
Alex Brendemuhl as Josef Mengele;
Diego Peretti as Enzo;
Elena Roger as Nora Edloc;
Florencia Bado as Lilith;
Ana Pauls as Nurse;
Guillermo Pfening as Klaus;
Alan Daicz as Tomas;
Abril Braunstein as Ailin;
Juani Martinez as Otto