The Pedestrian

The Nazi wartime past of a prominent German industrialist is uncovered by a tabloid newspaper hungry for another exposé, and the investigation prompts a second look into the auto accident which killed the man's oldest son. Director Maximillian Schell, who appears briefly on screen (in flashback) as the deceased son, uses the story to examine the skeletons in his country's closet, and to scratch once again the collective guilt of the German people. The film's major liability is its European-style post-dubbed English soundtrack, and to a lesser degree the outdated cut-and-splice collage editing, a smokescreen technique often used to give a film more 'meaning'. Otherwise it's an engrossing study of national responsibility, and on an even more intimate scale of a man haunted by the ghosts of his criminal past.