Conspiracy (DVD)

I recently purchased from Amazon Video what turned out to be one of the most absorbing and fascinating historical dramas I have seen in a very long time. The film is “Conspiracy,” a 2001 made-for-television docudrama from HBO. It tells the story of the Wannsee Conference of 1942, a notorious gathering of senior Nazi government officials who finalized plans for Hitler’s “Final Solution” – the extermination of six million European Jews. “Conspiracy” stars, among others, Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth, and David Threlfall. Based in part upon the sole surviving transcript of the Wannsee Conference, it is an extraordinary film that both educates and entertains. In January 1942, a group of high- and mid-ranking Nazi SS officers and civilian government bureaucrats gathered around a massive conference table at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, to discuss ways of implementing Adolf Hitler’s long-planned “Final Solution.” Reinhard Heydrich (Branagh), one of Hitler’s most senior Nazi officials, called the meeting at Hitler’s behest. Lt Col Adolf Eichmann (Tucci), of later international infamy, organized the conference and served as its recording secretary. As “Conspiracy” shows, these men discussed the “Final Solution” in great detail – personnel, logistics, the building of extermination camps, and the mind-boggling numbers of Jews to be eventually exterminated were just a few of the topics. What’s especially chilling is how these men talked about these subjects with a complete lack of conscience, or even an awareness of the enormous crimes against humanity they were conspiring to commit. With very few exceptions, every conference attendee spoke enthusiastically in favor of the proposed plan. Only one man – Dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger (Threlfall) – expressed any moral or ethical reservations about it, and he did so only in a private conversation with Heydrich. Although “Conspiracy” is strictly a dialogue film – the only “action” scenes are of a waiter dropping a stack of fine china dinner plates, and of a snowball fight among enlisted soldiers – it is far from dull. The acting is first-rate, the screenplay moves the story forward at a fast pace, and the subject matter is utterly fascinating. Watching “Conspiracy,” I learned a lot about how the Nazis planned for and implemented the most heinous and horrific crimes ever committed against humanity. “Conspiracy” is a film that should be seen by everyone. Most highly recommended.

10/10 for acting, seriously, EVERYONE is great in this, everyone's character brings their own backgrounds, wants and needs to "the table" and the emotion really storms out at times at each other and in general, and it's a whirlwind. This film is rich, entertaining, disturbing, all at once and has a respectably unique pace which adds to the experience since on the surface a 90 minute movie depicting a dozen men sitting at a table for a few hours doesn't sound too exciting, but the writers and film makers fixed that brilliantly. Conspiracy is particularly brilliant because watching from start to finish and knowing it's based on a very important event in history which is arguably shrouded in mystery, you say to yourself, wow, they must have had some great source information when writing this. Not so, only one heavily truncated copy of the minutes survived the war, an entire movie born from 2 paragraphs of B.S. that Eichmann went through with a fine tooth comb ensuring it was B.S. Not sure about the history of the investigation of the Wannsee Conference after the war, especially with those at the conference who survived and were interrogated, particularly the Israeli's interrogating Eichmann many years after his capture (just how much did he fill in the gaps from the watered down "minutes" he himself created?), but the bottom line and my main point is, with such little information to go on, to create an entire film from a few paragraphs from a highly coded document is just fantastic. I will say though I am obtuse to the other films that came out on the Wannsee conference, I think one in the 80's and one in the 60's, so I guess about every 20 years the Wannsee conference will get a new treatment. Some may call that Propaganda, but hey, the Nazi's were masters at it, and if this film is Propaganda, they're getting it back in spades.

Obra Excelente en toda la extensión de la palabra...un título sin precedentes... único y sin igual ....muchas gracias... saludos ...

This was a great movie with a top cast. Would recommend it to anyone that has an interest in the subject matter or members of the cast.

Being the history buff i am you would think i naturally gravitate to such films (which i do) but i often find myself being let down, by hollywood in particular, skewing history for dramatic effect or missing out important things altogether. This, however, is a wonderful piece of cinema that sums up the indifference to mass-killings by lawyers and bureaucrats. The plot lines are based on the minutes taken from the Wannsee Conference. It stands out to me because the fact is some of these men had brilliant minds and were very intelligent with high IQ's and not the 'usual' skinhead, blabbering thugs that often are potrayed as racists in film and television today....this makes it all the more chilling. The Good- Pretty much everything! the acting is wonderful with some real prescence in the room from some of Britains finest. The narrative bats you back and forth between the ego's and threats and moments of humanity when some of the members of the meeting realise what they are undertaking. The Film is very much free of holocaust sentiment, there are no strains of sorrowful violins (apart from one of Heydrich's favorite pieces of music at the end) no girls in red jackets, weeping mothers etc etc. This is basically a board meeting for a large business organisation who talk about the facts and figures and deadlines....and the business is the destruction of an entire religious group by the millions. Because you are witness to it you sense the enormity of it in a very chilling sense free from the usual 'weeping violin' breadcrumbs they usually drench every holocaust film in. The actual house was used in some of the exterior shots and you get the correct sense of time and place within history also you realise how many little cogs were busy at work in the Third Reich (often without Hitler's knowledge) The Bad- Personally i did not like the performances of Barnaby Kay playing Sturmbannführer Lange (A bumbling and awkward performance, almost piteous in a way) and Peter Sullivan Oberführer Schöngarth (insecerely brash with a slightly cockney accent that grated on me) Summary- Watch it! its an important part of history and this film gives you a small look into the extraordinary minds of these men and their roles in the nazi killing machine. Chilling...very chilling.

This film does a masterful job of explaining how the so-called Wansee Protocol came into being. And that Protocol was the overall blueprint for the Third Reich's "Final Solution" to what it termed "the Jewish problem." This is a frightening film. But, it's not because it shows scenes from either the battlefield, or any of the SS concentration camps then in existence. It's frightening because the conference was convened, not to mitigate or justify what the Third Reich was doing to the Jews, or anyone else who disagreed with them. Instead, the genocide of a whole race was discussed as a bureaucratic problem, a problem of administrative silos inside the German gov't that were impeding a more efficient slaughter. Reinhard Heydrich, who chaired the conference, wanted, as he said, the trains deporting the Jews East to start rolling without delay. To that end, he used the Wansee Conference to impress upon the relevant Ministries that the SS would be in charge of the "Final Solution," & that each Ministry was to coordinate it's efforts toward that goal through Lt. Col. SS Adolf Eichman. The acting in this film is top notch. Kenneth Branagh's Heydrich is a man on a mission & he approaches that mission with all the zeal of a true-believer. He is also not someone, given that he's the head of the Gestapo, you'll want to obstruct, in any way. Heydrich neutralizes, with either appeals to ego or threats of retaliation, anyone at the meeting who he perceives might fail to cooperate. It's chilling to watch Heydrich manipulate & threaten his way to unanimity. Stanley Tucci plays Adolf Eichman, a Lt. Col. who toadies to his superiors, strikes fear into anyone he considers an underling & uses his organizational skills to ensure the Final Solution will run with all the administrative efficiency he can bring to bear. The other actors in this ensemble are also excellent, esp. Colin Firth as the legal mind that originally codified Nazi race laws & is upset that Heydrich wants to run the Final Solution largely by fiat, without what his character thinks is a sufficient legal framework. For anyone who is unfamiliar with how the Nazis implemented their Final Solution, this film is a great primer, as well as being a fascinating study in how barbarity is quantified, justified & then acted on.

会議の、そして映画の主役たるハイドリヒ。ケネス・ブラナーがそれはきれいな金髪で演じていますが、実物のハイドリヒにはおよそ似てない。のですが、映画は抜群に、不思議なくらい面白いです。延々、会議をしているだけなのですが。日本語版のDVDが高価なあまり英語版を購入しましたが、廉価版の再販売を期待しています。