Amen

AMEN

REVIEWED BY SHANNON H.

Our rating: 5 out of 5

Rated:

Let's take a short trip back in time about 50 or 60 years. Imagine with all the knowledge you have about World War II and the Holocaust going up to government officials and warning them about the systematic killing and persecution of Jews by Hitler's Nazis. You would probably get the proverbial cold shoulder. Imagine feeling the same way if you were an SS officer. Who would you tell? Who could you turn to?

Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) is an SS officer and chemist. He is an expert in the fields of gases and dangerous chemicals. On orders from the Nazi government, he designs the famous concoction, Zyclon B gas. His colleagues are delighted at his expertise as he lectures on its components and how it is dangerous to humans. Later, his colleagues drive him to one of the death camps so they can demonstrate Zyclon B on innocent Jewish victims. When Gerstein realizes what the Nazis are doing to the Jews, he is unable to realize that his creation was used to murder unsuspecting men, women, and children.

Reacting to his conscience, he goes to visit a cardinal in Berlin who is working for the pope (Pope Pious XII). Gerstein feels, as a Christian, that systematic murder is against God's Law. He tells all that has happened at these death camps but his words fall on deaf ears. Fortunately for Gerstein, a young Jesuit monk, Riccardo Fontana (Mathieu Kassovitz from the French film Amelie) overhears his conversation and offers to help him by going to the Vatican and getting an audience with Pope Pius XII himself. The two of them make trips back and forth from Berlin to Rome to convince the pope and his colleagues that the Nazis were killing Jews in labor camps. It is important to note that the Vatican had strong ties to Adolf Hitler because both of them hated Stalin and Communism and they weren't willing to sacrifice their alliance for fear that Germany would invade the Vatican.

Riccardo, disgusted with the hypocrisy of the church in Rome, leaves the Vatican and decides to go to one of the death camps himself by getting on a train full of Jews and be a servant of Christ by helping them and ministering to them in the death camp. Gerstein offers to release him from the prison but Riccardo refuses, saying that he was called by God to minister to His children. Gerstein's cover has now been discovered by his fellow SS officers and is no longer considered trustworthy. He is eventually captured by the French resistance and put in prison.

The film doesn't have an ounce of sexuality in it. There is no nudity, but a line of mentally challenged children are headed to the gas chambers where they were forced to take their clothes off (we only see the bare shoulders of a girl and the bare chests of the boys). The said girl happened to be the niece of Kurt Gerstein. The violence is surprisingly low-key and most of the gory content is implied throughout the film. We see two SS officers shoot two Jewish prisoners. Kurt Gerstein watches through a peephole a building full of Jews being gassed with Zyclon B (we don't see anything but mild screaming is heard). Riccardo boards a train with Jews bound for one of the death camps, along with a mother and her baby son. When the train arrives at the camp, the "passengers" get off and an old man informs Riccardo that the baby had died along the way. Riccardo is pushed around by SS officers once he arrives at the camp. We also see a man interrupting the council of the League of Nations to warn them about the Nazi genocide and he eventually shoots himself in front of the council and many onlookers. Surprisingly, there is no profanity.

The film has a lot of Christian themes to it. Kurt Gerstein is a Christian who is torn between his conscience and duty to the SS. While he is promoted from position to position in the Nazi SS terror group, he feels ashamed of his position. Still, he can only tell certain people about what the Nazis are doing to the Jews to preserve his safety and the safety of his wife and children. Riccardo Fontana is torn between his loyalty to the Vatican (with their unholy alliance with Hitler) and what Christ would do in the situation. However, Christ and God seem to be set aside by the interests of the Catholic Church. The churches in Berlin are under Hitler's spell and are in denial of the Nazis' dirty work and are not willing to listen to Riccardo's words. The Nazis are indifferent to both Judaism and Christianity, but they unite with the Roman Catholic church to combat Communism (one of the papal cardinals makes this clear with Riccardo and one of the U.S. ambassadors). An SS colleague of Gerstein visits his home to "celebrate" the birthday of Charles Darwin. He then tells Gerstein's children that man evolved from apes and that "negroes" and Jews were inferior to the white Aryan race (fortunately, Gerstein keeps his kids away from it).

I enjoyed the movie but it was disturbing at times even though it wasn't gory or completely violent. This is a film that Christians should see to strengthen their faith and educate themselves on the Holocaust not just from the eyes of Jews but the eyes of Christians as well. Amen is based on a true story of SS officer Kurt Gerstein who, after witnessing Nazi cruelty towards Jews, tried to alert the Catholic church on what he saw. The character of Riccardo Fontana is fictional but meant to represent the priests who opposed Hitler's "final solution." The DVD provided background information on Gerstein as well as a small documentary on what it was like to make a film such as this one. The film, although it has minimal violence, is not appropriate for anyone 10 and under. It can (and should be) seen by anyone 13 and up.