Props to Bob Butler, patriot

Today I include the review of "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days." I hope the film gets a broad audience, because at the root of story is a parable for all of us living in this incredibly strange perior of America's history. I am proud of my friend Bob Butler for ditching any subtlety and instead slapping you right in the face with the obvious.

Right on, Bob. I do have to wonder if your editors actually read all the way through it. Damn fine two-paragraph ending, and yes, it should give us all pause that was is happening today is very similar to what happened to others a long time ago and a long ways away.

A devastating portrait of Nazi resistance
Film follows the heart-wrenching last days of a German martyr
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star

Zeitgeist Films

Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) was a 21-year-old student arrested and martyred for her protests against the Third Reich.

Restrained, claustrophobic and tragic, “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” can’t be mistaken for a fun time at the movies.

Maybe that’s why this downbeat German entry lost to the South African “Tsotsi” in this year’s Oscar race for best foreign language film.

But those with the courage to stick with director Marc Rothemund’s fact-based drama will discover a wrenching, infuriating and ultimately uplifting experience.

The Sophie Scholl of the title really existed.

In 1943 the 21-year-old nurse and college student, her brother, Hans, and several other members of a nonviolent student resistance group known as the White Rose were convicted of treason. Their crime was distributing fliers that said the war was unwinnable, that Hitler was mad and that Germans should peacefully resist their country’s military machine.

Most were executed.

Though Rothemund adopts an almost minimalist style here (the movie reminds me of Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan D’Arc” with its emphasis on faces against unremarkable backgrounds), “Sophie Scholl” nevertheless delivers a wrenching emotional arc.

The opening scenes are full of dread and stomach-churning suspense as Sophie (Julia Jentsch) and Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) race to spread their fliers throughout the deserted halls of their Munich university before the bell rings and their fellow students come pouring out.

With their arrests, the film becomes a game of wits between Sophie and police inspector Mohr (Alexander Held), whose transcripts of the interrogation became the basis for the Fred Breinersdorfer’s screenplay. Sophie maintains her innocence, claims to be apolitical and seems to have a plausible explanation for every bit of evidence Mohr produces.

Only when she reads her brother’s confession does she admit to her beliefs and put on a show of quiet defiance.

Her interrogator can’t help but appreciate Sophie’s courage and eloquence. He offers an out: If she’ll name names, she needn’t die. When she refuses Mohr goes on a desk-pounding rant. A brief appearance in court and our heroine is on her way to the executioner.

Director Rothemund trusts his material enough to simply plant his camera and allow the story to unfold. The movie’s key passage, Sophie’s interrogation by Mohr, is little more than two actors facing each other across a desk. And yet there is so much going on.

Jentsch is the rare actress who can act one emotion on the surface while suggesting another, contradictory one. This allows us to see past the calm nonchalance of Sophie’s game face to read the subtle signs of fear, hope and puzzlement as she tries to navigate through the traps the inspector has set for her. The performance is so free of histrionics that when Sophie finally allows herself a brief moment of fear and tears, it’s heartbreaking.

Held provides the ideal foil, playing Mohr as an efficient cop whose only allegiance is to the law. Even an unjust law. Still, he’s not without a conscience, and he can’t quite hide his feelings of compassion and admiration for the young woman he is condemning.

And some mention must be made of Andre Hennicke, whose invective-spitting judge dispenses decisions without pretense of objectivity. Here’s a guy just asking to be hated. You can’t help thinking of today’s browbeating talk-radio types.

Which brings up one of the most satisfying things about “Sophie Scholl” — the way the movie forces us to question ourselves, to step into Sophie’s shoes and search for the words and the courage to stand up for our beliefs.

At a time when Americans who question the Iraq war find themselves accused of insufficient patriotism, Sophie Scholl’s story resonates with new urgency. You can’t simply write it off as something that happened long ago to people far away.