Labyrinth of Lies

"Labyrinth of Lies", directed and co-written by Giulio Ricciarelli (along with Elizabeth Bartel) is a frightening and intelligent story of how one young German prosecutor, Alexander Fehling (Johann Radmann) in 1958, forced the Republic of Germany to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity by regular German citizens, drafted into the chaos of World War II.

When an enterprising West German journalist, Andr� Szymanski (Thomas Gnielka) confronts the still-ignorant prosecutor of the horrors of some Polish concentration camp, Auschwitz, and demands he investigate the What of its existence as well as the Who behind it. Fehling finds out that no one in his prosecutorial offices, nor on the street, knew of this terrible killing-field, and, worse, practically no one, except, perhaps some pesky Jews, deserving of their fate in the first place, cares enough for Fehling and Szymanski to continue.

In the late '50s their actions were provocative in the extreme and with rocks thrown through their windows and bosses demanding they desist, the duo proceed, bringing to light how ordinary men and women were reduced to the horrors of personal irresponsibility in petty and major crimes against innocent peoples: Jews, political dissidents, communists, Gypsy/Roma people, homosexuals, etc. An evil state at the time, plainly geared up to eliminate all who opposed them.

Extremely well-researched and -written, the film, difficult as it is to watch as horror-upon-horror unspools in front of us and the German populace of the day. (It's a close companion to Michael Verhoeven's 1990 "The Nasty Girl," on a similar theme of one individual dividing her town during the same period for the same reasons: demanding personal culpability for inhumane acts and timid support for an tyrannical government.)

The story unfolds quickly and the various reactions of the innocent and the guilty pull us inexorably into the story. All the casting is exemplary, with Radmann, Gnielka, Friederike Becht as Radmann's fianc�, Marlene Wondrak, whose dress-making business takes a hit when people associate her with this trouble-making prosecutor, as well as Hansi Jochmann as Schmittchen, the plump, middle-class secretary increasingly horrified as she takes down the testimony of the victims.

As America and the rest of the world continue to defend their democracies against tyrants, both local and international - who would gain power by tenacious lies and race-blaming - the rest of us must be aware of their tactics and not be complicit truth-deniers. As Thomas Jefferson wrote for us: "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty."

Object lessons here in this powerful and meaningful film.

"Labyrinth of Lies"
Blu-ray
$14.99 on Amazon
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