Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (2005)

This film details the last six days of the primary members of a resistance group called the White Rose. The White Rose was an organization of students, mainly around Munich, during the years 1942-1943.
not only the filming took place at the original locations that are still there, but the crew went at great length doing things 'right', including getting the weather reports for February 1943. Yes, there is this strange feeling of looking at the film's title, which sounds like the title for a documentary. But then I didn't gather the impression that Rothemund's goal was to poeticise the story of Sophie Scholl. I think it is quite enough that in Germany she is perceived as a martyr. What Sophie Scholl - Die Letzten Tage does successfully is it shows a person behind the image, a young girl (younger than myself), who was prepared to die for her idea, but desperately loved life.
The film is shot in color, but the color is heavily muted and it looks almost black and white. That is appropriate because the film plays as much as a documentary and as it does as a fictional drama.
The moral and dramatic heart of this absorbing film is in Sophie's extended interrogation by Mohr (Gerald Held), one time rural policeman now grateful to the Reich for his elevation to interrogator with the power of life or death over his prisoners.A father himself, he clearly finds Sophie's moral conviction and stubborn resistance disturbing. He can relate to her intelligence, her attractiveness, determination and self-destructive honesty. Everything except her moral condemnation of Hitler and the Reich. Mohr is like someone who knows the emperor is naked but is shocked when someone says it out loud. The acting in these scenes is simply superb, we see Sophie's sheer naked courage and idealistic conviction shake Mohr's blind unquestioning conformity. Only to be retrenched behind blank, dead, unthinking eyes.
The excellent Julia Jentsch plays brilliantly the intelligent, idealistic Sophie with her absolute commitment to justice and freedom. She moves towards her death through a system reminiscent of a strictly run, aseptic hospital. And at every step of the way, we see ordinary people, trapped in a nightmare they can see but not change. Each finds a way to show Sophie their empathy; from the communist prisoner staying alive by working for her jailors to the warderess who bends the rules to allow the three condemned young people a final cigarette and hug of comfort before their execution
This film is as unsettling as it is moving. It makes one ask - how many of us in similar circumstances, would have the courage to stand against the sheer weight of social conformity reinforced by an atmosphere of fear and an implacable application of lethal power? Heroism indeed, serving a belief in the ultimate right to personal conscience and the indestructibility of the idea of freedom in justice. The intensely moving photographs of the real Sophie Scholl and White Rose group that close the film give them a final victory over their oppressors. Sixty years after their deaths, their story is told and their memory cherished. It is fitting that such heroism be recognised. If you can seek this one out don't miss it. Inspirational.
4/5