 |
|
|
| Before the Fall |
 enlarge
|
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.99
You Save: $10.96 (37%)
Buy New/Used from $18.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2005
Category: DVD
Publisher: Picture This
Studio: Picture This
Manufacturer: Picture This
Label: Picture This
Format: Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: German (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 111 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 667443562146
EAN: 0667443562146
ASIN: B000EZ9066
Release Date: June 13, 2006 (New: Last 30 Days)
Theatrical Release Date: November 30, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
|
Similar Items:
| " |
The Mudge Boy |
| " |
Brokeback Mountain (Widescreen Edition) |
| " |
Garcon Stupide |
| " |
Transamerica (Widescreen Edition) |
| " |
Jargo |
|
|
Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Friendship ultimately defeats the Nazis June 21, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an excellent movie, and rather than repeat what others have said here I will just give a few comments. Two young men, still really boys, ultimately defeat the Nazis each with an act of defiance. This point is overlooked by other reviewers.One boy commits suicide rather than violating what he believes, and his friend Friedrich honors and agrees with his friend by losing a boxing match on purpose and thus losing his place in the 'new order' forever. Courage won the day------it is not pretty and very sad that it ended this way, but see it for the triumph it is! It was extremely difficult for anyone either in the conquered countries or Germany to stand up to Nazism. This film is a triumph, because it shows this defiance. And I agree with others that this movie is very well made and the acting is first rate. I only wish many more Americans would watch movies like this. We need to know and see good and evil in its starkest form, because it continues today right under our noses-------------we are not prepared for 'the fall' that is now upon us.
"Aesthetes are not needed in this hour." June 17, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
When the German film "Before the Fall" begins, it's Prague in 1942, and Friedrich Weimar (Max Riemelt) is set is go to work in the factory alongside his father. A German officer who teaches at an elite military training academy spots Friedrich during a boxing match and invites him to attend the school. The school is one of 40 Napolas (National-Political Institutes for Learning)--schools that train youth athletically while simultaneously indoctrinating them with Nazi ideals.
To Friedrich, attending the school represents an opportunity for education and advancement. Friedrich's father, however is opposed to Hitler, and he's horrified by the idea. Friedrich, who's too young and naive to grasp the ramifications of attending the school, packs a suitcase, and runs away from home.
Friedrich's mentor is delighted to see his protege arrive. But the first few scenes of life at the Napola are chilling. Friedrich must don a uniform and surrender to the brutal indoctrination enforced by the school's harsh masters, and reinforced by senior students who are being groomed for the higher echelon of the SS.
Any sign of weakness on the part of the students is ridiculed, singled-out, and trammeled upon. Brutal training and insane obedience are the order of the day--accompanied by ceremonial worship of all things Nazi. Naturally, in this environment, anyone who questions, disobeys, or fails suffers. Blond, blue-eyed Friedrich is the "Aryan ideal" and thanks to the protection of his mentor, he's gradually accepted at this school for the privileged in spite of his working class roots.
Friedrich makes friends with Albrecht Stein (Tom Schilling), the sensitive son of the governor. Stein writes poetry and loathes everything his despotic father stands for. There's no love lost between father and son--Stein's father clearly despises what he interprets as his son's weakness.
Ultimately, moral choices must be made which require enormous character and fortitude. This is a chilling portrayal of indoctrination (brainwashing) designed to morally corrupt all the pupils, and cannibalize them into the system once they are divested of any shred of humanity. The film has its cliched moments, but it's riveting from beginning to end. DVD extras include a video diary and deleted scenes. Directed by Dennis Gansel, "Before the Fall" is in German with English subtitles--displacedhuman
A shocking look into Hitler Youth and the Nazi movement. June 16, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Before The Fall is a handsomely mounted and tastefully directed German production that is part World War 11 melodrama and part sociopolitical comment on the evils of national socialism. It's set in a world where brutality and nascent viciousness go hand in hand and where any sign of empathy or compassion is interpreted as a sign of weakness.
The story is relatively simple. Set in 1942, a young and naive German boy by the name of Friedrich (Max Riemelt) decides to rebel against his parents and takes up a scholarship at a Napola - a prestigious school for the training of Hitler youth. A talented boxer, Friedrich has been admitted mostly for his skills in the rink.
He also comes from a working class family and his father is severely anti-Nazi, but the young man is determined to go the school, seeking a secure future beyond the drudgery of working in his family's factory. Forging his father's signature, he steals off into the night and marches naively into the orifice of evil.
Initially, the seventeen-year-old is enamored by the stirring speeches, energetic anthems and boyish camaraderie, and his imagination is totally inspired by the Nazi's penchant towards advocating strength and greatness and crushing those whom they see as weak.
Freidrich quickly adapts to the militaristic life of the school, until he meets the bookish and sensitive Albrecht (Tom Schilling), the son of a wealthy Nazi governor. Albrecht rebels against his father's brutal ideology, suffering the bullying and the taunting, but things reach a climax when the boys are forced to hunt down a group of escaped Russian prisoners. The incident forces Friedrich to see the truth of his own situation and to see the Nazi dogma for what it really is - a world devoid of humanity.
Obviously the strength of Before the Fall is its way of showing how these boys where brainwashed and how the Nazi philosophy, based on Nietzsche's concepts, permeated every aspect of their daily lives. As a boxer Friedrich perhaps embodies everything the National Socialist movement inspires to be, after all, boxing is a brutal and uncompromising sport, which is probably why Albrecht's father takes to him so readily whilst intent to spurn his own son.
Director Dennis Gansel does a good job if subtly showing how the philosophy of purity and strength espoused by the Nazi fanatics, is subtly undermined by these two boys. Friedrich's eventual growth involves his realization that the Napola is not what it's cracked up to be, that beneath the master-race hype and rigors of study and military training, the school is in fact just a center for the training of ill-educated bully boys.
My one problem with this film is that there isn't much of a definitive plot. Once Freidrich gets to the school, the narrative tends to be made up of a series of loosely connected incidents involving abuse and sadism, without anything to really tie it all together.
Obviously the bond between Friedrich and Albrecht eventually becomes the centerpiece of this icy drama. But after revealing the upsetting and fanatical side of the Nazi machine, the director allows the story to slide into relationship bathos, and the movie - to its detriment - becomes a rather empty collection of Napola abuses and mishaps. Mike Leonard June 06.
The Path from Glory to Self Martyrdom June 14, 2006
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
BEFORE THE FALL ('NAPOLA') is a brilliantly made film that addresses the blind hopes of youth in becoming a success as a man, a factor that allowed and allows dictators to entice young men into the realm of warriors under the guise of applauded bravery and the golden promise of achieving glory for a great cause. This story just happens to be about Hitler and his 40 Napola (training camps for the elite German youths in 1942) and the young boys and men who trained in these National Political societies. It could be found in many places and in many times...
Friedrich Weimer (handsome and talented young Max Riemelt) comes from the lower class in Germany (his father is aiming him toward factory work) and is a fine young boxer. His talents are noted by some representatives from the Nazi party and he is asked to report for enrollment in a Napola, an important means of education and training that Friedrich sees as being his way to become something special, someone important. His father is anti-Nazi and refuses to let Friedrich go, but Friedrich is determined and runs into the night to join the Napola. Once there he is admitted, groomed as a boxer for the Napola, and introduced to the Hitler's youth movement. His fellow classmates vary from the very wealthy to other fine Arian lads. They are trained, observed, and brainwashed as to the glory of the Thousand Year Reich. Problems begin to arise when Friedrich gets to know his fellow classmates: Siegfried (Martin Goeres) is a bedwetter and is humiliated publicly for his problem; Albrecht (Tom Schilling) is a poet and writer whose father is one of the governors of the Napola and Albrecht is anti-war; other lads seem on the surface to be obedient yet most have hidden reservations about what they are doing.
Being 1942 some changes are occurring in the Nazi dream and the Senior class is sent out on a mission to fight the enemy. And one night Friedrich's class is called out of bed and sent into the woods to find Russian soldiers who are 'threatening' their security. The boys open fire on the Russians only to find that they have killed a number of unarmed Russian boys. This profoundly disturbs them all, but Albrecht in particular. Friedrich continues to observe the manner in which he and the other boys are used and slowly his best friends find ways to martyr themselves and ultimately Friedrich does the same in his only way - by changing the way he approaches the Napola expectations of his boxing.
Max Riemelt as Friedrich is outstanding: not only does he have the solid extraordinary good looks but he also can act, satisfying every nuance of this challenging role. The remainder of the cast - both young boys and the adults running the Napola - are superb. The cinematography is subtly beautiful, ranging from the tough interiors inside to the vistas of a Germany before it was destroyed by the not too distant fall. Director Dennis Gansel, who co-wrote the script with Maggie Peren, is a young man (the featurette with the DVD has an enlightening conversation between Gansel and Riemelt) knows exactly how to capture both the wide-eyed innocence of youth and the slowly crumbled ideals of young men. This is an outstanding film to see and experience. Its lessons are terrifying and intense. In German with English subtitles. Grady Harp, June 06
 Dead Nazi Society June 7, 2006
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
"Before the Fall" is an extremely well-made film that suffers from a cliche-riddled and simple-minded script. Boy goes to Nazi school. Boy witnesses the evil of the Nazi system. Boy fights against the Nazi system. I've seen this movie before. And so have you; it was called "Dead Poets Society." The problem with movies like this is that they are predictable, relying on formulas to propel the story forward. Despite its beautiful cinematography and good acting, this movie falls over and never gains the strength to get back up.
|
|
|
Copyright Runningonkarma.com 2006
|
|
|
