Nazi Pop Twins (2007) (TV)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

James Quinn

Release Date:

July 2007 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Filmmaker James Quinn investigates the controversial American pop band Prussian Blue, who are fronted by teenage twin girls...

Plot Keywords:

Racism | White Supremacy | Strong Language | Nazism | Non Fiction

Cast

April Gaede	...	Herself
Lamb Gaede	...	Herself
Lynx Gaede	...	Herself
James Quinn	...	Narrator

Runtime:

50 min | 65 min (including commercials)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

IMG Media

Interesting if not as revealing or as dissecting as it clearly hoped to be

Like many teenage girls dream of being, Lamb and Lynx Gaede are twin sisters who are a pop music duo who have achieved international recognition. However the twins are not actually that successful but have achieved infamy more than fame as duo "Prussian Blue" – named after the chemical residue that some claim is proof that the Holocaust never happened. With a pro-white and racist agenda the girls are managed by their mother April. To get to know the family more, filmmaker James Quinn spends a year with them and sees some aspects of their life that concern them.

The clean and "innocent" sight of the Gaede twins first came to my attention through a Louis Theroux documentary looking at white supremacists. And it is in a similarly styled approach that I met them again as James Quinn lives around them for a year. The subjects are of course interesting and the film immediately hooks the viewer by wisely putting the grandfather right up front, since he is by far the most obvious "freak" in what is essentially a politically incorrect freak show. His talk of "mud people" is shocking but really he is a harmless caricature used to draw us in to the more sinister April. She is a little more canny as she pushes this agenda through her daughters.

This makes for a pretty interesting film but you can see what Quinn is after and you can sort of feel his frustration that he doesn't totally get it. He obviously has the same theory as the majority of us – which is that Lamb and Lynx are not really free to make their own minds up and are simply the image of their mom. At times cracks show that indicate this very clearly but the walls never really start to crumble, never mind fall. Hence towards the end Quinn is forced to hit as hard as he dare to make it happen. The confrontations are not as sharp as I would have liked because Quinn does get stuck in – something that Theroux tends to do better by hanging back and drawing the subject out towards him. In Quinn's case the result is more of an argument than the "reveal" I would have preferred.

It does still have value and it is quite an interesting film but I did end it feeling that I had not learnt a great deal about the subjects or about any wider point. Extremists always make for fascinating viewing due to their nature, but in this case Quinn cannot manage to force his way through the cracks that he manages to expose.