Der Unhold (1996)

Director:

Volker Schlöndorff

Writers:

Michel Tournier (novel)
Jean-Claude Carrière (writer) ...

Release Date:

12 September 1996 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Frenchman Abel Tiffauges likes children, and wants to protect them against the grown-ups. Falsely suspected as child molester...

Plot Keywords:

Children | Frenchman | Castle | Hunting | Falsely Convicted

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

John Malkovich	...	Abel Tiffauges
Gottfried John	...	Chief Forrester
Marianne Sägebrecht	...	Mrs. Netta
Volker Spengler	...	Fieldmarshall Hermann Goering
Heino Ferch	...	SS Officer Raufeisen
Dieter Laser	...	Prof. Blaettchen
Agnès Soral	...	Rachel
Sasha Hanau	...	Martine
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Lawyer
Simon McBurney	...	Brigadier
Ilja Smoljanski	...	Ephraim
Luc Florian	...	Prisoner-of-War
Laurent Spielvogel	...	Prisoner-of-War
Marc Duret	...	Prisoner-of-War
Philippe Sturbelle	...	Prisoner-of-War

Also Known As:

Le roi des aulnes (France)
The Ogre

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

France | Germany | UK

Language:

English | German | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Singapore:PG | Germany:12 (w) | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:18 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Malbork, Poland

Company:

Canal+

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Prior to the school fire, a caption says "Paris 1925". Upon his arrest as an adult, Abel, through his narration, remembers the fire as having happened "twenty years ago". This would place his adult scenes in 1945, but when he joins the French army after his arrest it is before the German occupation of Paris which would place his arrest in 1940. However, Abel is slow-witted and possibly does not have an accurate sense of time.

Quotes:

Prof. Blaettchen: Brightness is not a characteristic of the German race. We don't want brightness! People say, "Oh, so-and-so is so bright, he has such a clear mind!" No. We mistrust this brightness, this clarity. Let the new African races cultivate brightness. Our sources are in darkness. That is what drives us to unparalleled creativity.

Treason in the Name of Child Protection

Abel is not simply slow-witted, he is morally shortchanged and has little if any ability to recognize even the reality much less the depth of his willing collaboration with the Germans. Abel is a survivor and while his concern for the children being trained as proto-Nazis in an ancient castle is real, so is his ruthlessness in collecting them by force for his German superiors with the aid of snarling Dobermans.

The film abounds in caricatures beginning with an outdoor picnic by complacent, indeed moronic, French officers who fail to even remotely perceive the danger of the onrushing Wehrmacht. Reichsmarshall Goring is portrayed as a grinning fool except when he approaches the state of barking madness. This is a legitimate dramatic device but the real Goring, cured before World War II of doctor-induced morphine addiction, was more complex and, in that sense, more interesting (decades ago I took a psychology course with Dr. Gilbert, who examined Goring at Nuremberg and wrote a book about the experience which is still available in second-hand bookshops. HIS Goring was chilling, no one to laugh at.).

The film is most effective when it eerily recreates what must have been the almost erotic attraction of nighttime rallies with flags, bunting, torches and the steady beat of martial music. That little boys were inculcated with the madness of Nazism through these rituals is powerfully shown here.

It was hard for me to care about Abel one way or the other but the character is well-acted as are the other main roles.