"Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl" or "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" (highly ironic that this one comes out at pretty much exactly the same time like "Jojo Rabbit") is a new 2-hour film from Germany. The director and one of the writers is Caroline Link, who almost 20 years ago, had her biggest success when her movie "Nowhere in Africa" won Germany the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Very recently, she directed a real crowd magnet at the movies that focused on the young years of comedian Hape Kerkeling and now here we have her most recent effort that deals, like so many other (German) films, with the years of Nazi Germany. Oh well, indirectly at least, but I shall get to that later. Let's stay with the basics first: Link's co-writer is Anna Brüggemann, a prolific German actress, and her brother has been a successful filmmaker for a long time and seems like she also gives it a shot now to deliver in other fields than acting. Or I should say that she does so for films not connected with her brother because in these, she has worked as a writer before already. But the base material here is of course by Judith Kerr and with that I mean the novel that this film is based on. I remember we read this book at school and I liked it back then, which was not too often the case for the books we read in German classes, so this made me especially curious about this film here, even if I must say I did not remember anyhing about the story and the very basic background. And liking it. Now as for the film we have here, which by the way is not merely a German production, but a German/Swiss co-production, they were taking the usual route. The grown-ups are played by pretty established and well-known actors like Juri and Masucci, who play the parents. Justus von Dohnányi is in it too, but only has two scenes, while Ursula Werner is in it only the first half hour or so. The two child actors are not famous. The one at the center, Riva Krymalowski, is almost a rookie even and that is not unusual because frequently they simply go for fresh faces. Now I am not sure if she was so good like everybody says or if it was just her cuteness, but we will see if she can have a career in the long run. I think overall she carried the film nicely, but looking at the experience and competence she worked with here I am not surprised about that at all. Also pay attention to how this is the second child-centered film from Link in a row, even if the character's backgrounds could not be any more different, already looking at the time when this is set. You can also say that Krymalowski's Anna here is at least partially influenced by Judith Kerr's own childhood and experiences she made back then. The writer only died last year by the way and reached a really old age.
Overall, I liked thiks film. I would not call it outstanding, but I think it is convincing. Of course, they had to stay close to the book and this is not a film like The Pianist or Schindler's List, in which people are constantly killed and the character are always in danger of losing their lives too. They are relatively safe you can say because they make the wise decision to leave Germany before the Nazis get into power, i.e. in the year 1933. In Switzerland, they faced discrimination of course too, but there was not really the danger of physical harm or even worse. This is where the film is set (and maybe also explains the fact that Switzerland is a production country too). After staying there for a while, the family decides to move to Paris, which means a new chapter in the girl's life. And briefly before the film ends, they have to leave again, this time not really because they are hunted away, but because in England the father simply has better chances to find work to feed his family. They did not know it back then of course, but we know now that this move was the best thing they could do because the Nazis did not manage to conquer any part of Great Britain, let alone London. So a lot about this film is about moving places and how the female protagonist deals with it, also with financial hardships in the second half. How she struggles with new languages, makes new friends, loses contact to old friends etc. And also always face new forms of discrimination. The best example is the female neighbor in Berlin. Another example is the Austrian Nazi woman who lives next to them in Paris and so on. It still needs to be said that this discrimination always came from grown-ups really, or at least not children. Nobody insults the girl at school and when the brother goes to the table and wishes the racist family a wonderful day (the only scene where he really makes an impact whatsoever, other than that he could have been left out completely), it's the mother who looks grumpy and the children are just surprised. In general, I thought they did fine with depicting the central character's somewhat innocent life as a kid and the impact that the historic background has on her in terms of stolen innocence. One great example was about ransom (Kopfgeld) that I cannot really explain because it is impossible to translate accurately into English, but if you have seen the film, you know what I mean. Another moment i liked in particular was one that did not have too much to do with the historic background, but just was a perfect moment for a kids-themed movie, namely when the protagonist makes a nice statement about friendship towards her best friend there and the other girls smiles in the most heartwarming manner without saying anything, but you can see she is touched and happy and sees it exactly the same the other way around. (Somebody in my crowd said something like "so sweet" and I agree.) The farewell scene between these two was also fairly sweet wwhen they are sharing a moment of being in hiding in a playful manner. In contrast to that, we also see a lot of drama. I mentioned some of the major issues here already, but even if the violence is not visible, it is there. Just take the story about the man who was treated like a dog (in the literal sense) by the Nazis. This is the best example. There's others, but not too many as the grown-ups try to keep the horror away from the children. And as a consequence also from us as the audience.
Sadly, there are also flaws with this film. I will mention some of the aspects I did not like about this film. The best (or worst) example is really how they tried to push this film into perspective with today's issue of refugees in a desperate attempt to make this also a contemporarily relevant film. It was embarrassing and this is when the film hit really rock-bottom. Before you try to come up with a parallel like this, think about the fact that millions and millions of Jews were killed back then in one of the darkest times in human history. Luckily (and I am really grateful for that) we are not experiencing the same now, the same our grandparents experienced back then. Apart from that, most violence against Jews stems from Muslim extremist group these days (and not nationalist right-wing fascists, besides there is discussion anyway which end of the scale the Nazis back then were). Okay, let's not drift away too far now. I just want to say this inclusion by Link was really shameful. Justus von Dohnányi also struggled with what was written for him, but also the line delivery. This brief mention of elephants not worrying about Hitler was really bizarre. I am not sure if this was in the book. Later on, in his second scene the reference about a pure heart burning with passion (or so) was also not half as effective as it could have been. Same is true (but slightly less) about the little magic trick from him that involves blowing. What else? Oh yeah, the scene with the money bill near the end already. Come on, are we really supposed to believe that? She made over a 100 mistakes in a dictation, but not much later writer something herself that wins an award? This made as little sense as the teacher forgetting it initially. It's nice to see her happy with how she was struggling at school and I know this scene was supposed to emphasize her creative mind, but I personally thought it just did not make any sense whatsoever. Again, it is probably in the book like that, so I cannot criticize the filmmakers too much here. I am pretty sure other viewers will have other issues with this film here, but these are the things that came to mind negatively for me. I also want to say that the pink rabbit could have have better/more inclusion. It's still effective, but not as effective as it could have been or what the photo here on imdb implies. Really cute photo by the way. I want a pink rabbit too. You can certainly say that you always leave something behind if you move on in life (be it geographically or emotionally), but your memory will always stay with you when new adventures are about to happen. I already said this is based on a book we read at school, so no surprise that maybe some teachers will show their students this movie or just parents their kids. Another reason why there is no graphic violence or so in here. I do believe though that for really young audiences this film is probably not the right choice and some of the kids in my showing were certainly too young to grasp even the very basic meaning of this film. For everybody else, it can be a good watch though. I did not love the outcome as much as I hoped I could, also because the time in history always interested me in films, but it is certainly not a failure (except the refugee references) from any point of view. I could probably write another three paragraphs here, but I'll leave it at that and suggest you go check it out for yourself. I have a feeling this is a film that will not vanish anytime soon, but still can be found easily. It should be.
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