Labyrinth of Lies

Name: Labyrinth of Lies
Genre: Drama, History
Released: September 30, 2015
Duration: 124 min
Rating: 62
Cast: Alexander Fehling, André Szymanski, Friederike Becht, Johannes Krisch

2015

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Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Ratings

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6.7	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Ratings

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Labyrinth Of Lies (US)

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Movie Details & Credits

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 30, 2015 | R

Starring: Alexander Fehling, André Szymanski, Friederike Becht, Johannes Krisch

Summary: Germany, 1958. Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) has just recently been appointed Public Prosecutor and, like all beginners, he has to content himself with boring traffic offenses. When the journalist Thomas Gnielka (André Szymanski) causes a ruckus in the courthouse, Radmann pricks up his ears: a friend of Gnielka's identified a teacherGermany, 1958. Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) has just recently been appointed Public Prosecutor and, like all beginners, he has to content himself with boring traffic offenses. When the journalist Thomas Gnielka (André Szymanski) causes a ruckus in the courthouse, Radmann pricks up his ears: a friend of Gnielka's identified a teacher as a former Auschwitz guard, but no one is interested in prosecuting him. Against the will of his immediate superior, Radmann begins to examine the case - and lands in a web of repression and denial, but also of idealization. In those years, "Auschwitz" was a word that some people had never heard of, and others wanted to forget as quickly as possible. Only the Prosecutor General Fritz Bauer (Gert Voss) encourages Radmann's curiosity; he himself has long wanted to bring the crimes committed in Auschwitz to the public's attention, but lacks the legal means for a prosecution. When Johann Radmann and Thomas Gnielka find documents that lead to the perpetrators, Bauer immediately recognizes how explosive they are and officially entrusts all further investigations to Radmann. The young prosecutor devotes himself with utmost commitment to his new task and is resolved to find out what really happened. He questions witnesses, combs through files, secures evidence and allows himself to be drawn into the case to such an extent that he is blind to everything else - even to Marlene Wondrak (Friederike Becht), with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love. Radmann oversteps boundaries, falls out with friends, colleagues and allies, and is sucked deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of lies and guilt in his search for the truth. But what he ultimately brings to light will change the country forever. [Sony Pictures Classics]… Expand

Director: Giulio Ricciarelli

Genre(s): Drama, History

Rating: R

Runtime: 124 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Rex Reed

Sep 30, 2015

It’s one of the most important and revelatory films of the year. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Nov 3, 2015

It’s a fine film, and a surprising history lesson — not because the Germans don’t remember the Holocaust, but because we’re reminded that there was a time when they didn’t want to. Read full review

Bilge Ebiri

Oct 9, 2015

Here’s a movie about the efforts to bring the soldiers stationed at Auschwitz to justice, and it’s strangely light on its feet. Read full review

Benjamin Mercer

Sep 30, 2015

A lot more thought-provoking on issues of collective memory (or lack thereof) than the typical prestige picture, but it does falter dramatically in its later stretches. Read full review

Stephanie Merry

Oct 8, 2015

Labyrinth of Lies is an eye-opening story about the importance of seeking the truth — even when it’s complicated, ugly and buried beneath years of secrecy and deceit. Read full review

Oleg Ivanov

Sep 23, 2015

It only scratches the surface of the mass psychological wounds and trauma that the trials unleashed on the Germany psyche. Read full review

Farran Smith Nehme

Sep 24, 2015

Labyrinth of Lies hits every genre cliché, from the mawkish score to the no-dialogue-montage-of-tragedy. Perhaps inevitably, it’s Germany’s submission for the best foreign film Oscar. Read full review

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ClariseSamuels

Jun 29, 2016

As an undergraduate German major who would eventually get a PhD in German literature, I went to Germany to study in the summer of 1974, barely thirty years after the Holocaust. Being Jewish, I felt the weight of Germany's recent history bearing down on me oppressively. As I walked aroundAs an undergraduate German major who would eventually get a PhD in German literature, I went to Germany to study in the summer of 1974, barely thirty years after the Holocaust. Being Jewish, I felt the weight of Germany's recent history bearing down on me oppressively. As I walked around the streets of Munich and made a special trip to visit the Dachau concentration camp, I grappled with the fact of the atrocities. Were all Germans sick and sadistic? The answer was no, but the phenomenon of the Holocaust is such that the national hysteria that overtook a previously civilized country will have to be psychoanalyzed for at least a hundred years to come. True, Hitler implemented a police state with spies everywhere. Schoolchildren were brainwashed to turn in their own parents. If a citizen was suspected of being oppositional, SS trucks rolled into the village, rounded up the accused and shot them in the town square. It was a dire warning for any individual who wanted to protest the Hitler regime. But what about mass protests of a kind that overwhelmed and could not be suppressed? There was no such thing in Germany at that time.

Labyrinth of Lies (Im Labyrinth des Schweigens) addresses the West German state of the early 1960's, where a younger generation had grown up ignorant of the Holocaust and never even having heard of Auschwitz. This in spite of the fact that West Germany was paying monthly reparations to Holocaust victims (on par with Social Security checks), while East Germany blamed capitalist society for the Holocaust and denied all responsibility. Josef Mengele, the psychosadistic doctor who tortured and murdered children with revolting experiments, was still on the loose and would remain so for the rest of his life. Adolf Eichmann, who oversaw the mass deportation and systematic murder of Jewish multitudes, was being hunted down in Argentina by the Israelis, who would eventually abduct him, try him in Jerusalem, and hang him for war crimes. A young German prosecutor in Berlin, Johann Radmann, played by German actor Alexander Fehling, becomes aware that his generation did not know of the crimes perpetrated by their parents nor were they aware that Nazi criminals still walked among them. Radmann, who is a composite of several prosecutors in the real-life story, sought to rectify the injustices that were still under his control.

The film documents the attorneys' gathering of hard evidence and eye-witness accounts which were all faithfully recorded. It was a turning point for the Germans when the prosecutors went to court to try Nazi criminals who were still living their post-war lives in Germany as “normal” citizens, some of them holding important government positions. For the first time, the Germans were washing their own dirty laundry, even though from 1963 to 1965 only seventeen Nazi criminals from Auschwitz were tried for war crimes by their German peers. The film depicts Radmann collaborating with Mossad, Israel's CIA, in the failed search for Mengele, who was living in South America, but who continued to visit relatives every year in Germany.

The age of German denial is over. Today every German schoolchild spends two years studying the history of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime, including the Holocaust. The Kollektivschuld (collective guilt) that hovered over the Germans was extended to the adult children and grandchildren of the Holocaust criminals, and now seems to be fading out with the great-grandchildren. German students abroad complain that they are still asked difficult questions by foreigners. The psychological phenomenon of the gruesome and insane hold of a swarthy, ugly little sadistic murderer named Adolf Hitler, whose psychotic mental problems remained undiagnosed throughout his life, as well as the psychotic criminality of approximately 800,000 SS officers and soldiers who worked for him, is one that will be studied for years to come. This film, which has been masterfully constructed, gives us new insight into the German psyche, seen at both its worst in the persona of ex-Nazis who suffered no remorse, and its finest in the form of Radmann, who grapples with horror, disgust, and nightmares over the grim legacy that he has inherited from a generation of Germans who went mad.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Ralfbergs

Nov 6, 2016

A really good movie which shows the history part which is rarely talked about - the aftermath of World War 2 in Germany. And it shows how people tried to deny the war crimes and tried to forget it, even though they should be put on trial for what they did. Really enjoyed the movie, onlyA really good movie which shows the history part which is rarely talked about - the aftermath of World War 2 in Germany. And it shows how people tried to deny the war crimes and tried to forget it, even though they should be put on trial for what they did. Really enjoyed the movie, only thing I missed is I think it should have included the trial scenes too and showed the idea that, even though you are made to do such horrible things, you can fight against it, or at least try.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JuanSebastian

Dec 21, 2015

This movie brings history to people that are no into it, it's such a great production, the screenplay works very well and the direction is also a great one. There's something into its direction that magnifies the plot and the film intention. Drama and joy is what I experienced watchingThis movie brings history to people that are no into it, it's such a great production, the screenplay works very well and the direction is also a great one. There's something into its direction that magnifies the plot and the film intention. Drama and joy is what I experienced watching Labyrinth of Lies. I hope every German feels really proud of what happened in this film. While watching the movie I started to thinking about my country issues, it opened my mind about politics and social problems. I can't keep thinking about its cinematography and screenplay.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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