It’s getting harder and harder to say anything fresh about World War II, but this intriguing, beguiling film manages it. Based on a bestselling book, it looks at the war through the eyes of an innocent German girl, who discovers, slowly but surely, what her country is guilty of. This framework means the film can produce exceptionally complex, dense scenes through spare dialogue and bright but telling visuals.
Liesel is a young girl around 10 years old, the film is never explicit who is travelling on a train with her tortured Communist mother and sick younger brother. When the boy dies presumably of malnourishment or flu Liesel, who is illiterate, picks up a book at the funeral. She is then sent to live with Hans and Rosa, a poor couple living in a small town.
Hans (Geoffrey Rush) is jocular, warm, musical and playful with his new daughter, Rosa is austere, strict and stressed by having to wash clothes all day to earn money. Hans’ unemployment is the result, we learn, of resisting joining the Nazi Party. Liesel is sent to the local school, where she quickly learns the joy of words and reading, and makes friends with her neighbour Rudy. She is also indoctrinated into the ways of the Nazi party, wearing a brown uniform and, in one extraordinary scene, singing nationalistic, racist songs as if they were Christmas carols.
Slowly, through learning to read, she begins to realise what her country is actually fighting for, and her clear blue eyes become clouded with doubt. Kristelnacht is bad enough as she watches her neighbours being dragged through the streets, but when she is forced to throw a beloved book onto a bonfire she turns completely. Rudy is similarly bullied for being a fan of Jessie Owens the footage of the boy practising his sprints cut between Owens’ triumph at the 1936 Olympics is chilling to the core.
Liesel’s parents seem to be too poor to be involved in any of this, but their turn comes when they shelter a Jewish boy whose father fought alongside Hans in World War I. The boy becomes ill from hiding in the basement, and his only respite is Liesel’s readings to him from her increasing collection of books. Eventually she runs out of them and has to invent stories from her imagination, a trick she repeats in an air raid shelter to the terrified citizens of the town.
To watch an innocent, angelic-looking child’s journey through the Germany of the 1930s and 40s brings a fresh perspective on a well worn theme namely, how on earth did this happen? Liesel is a proud German, but through her intelligence works out why her mother simply “disappeared and why her new parents have to keep the Jewish boy in the basement. Her steady realisation is combined with her growing love of literature the one thing the Nazis were trying to kill off.
The key scenes Kristallnacht, the burning of the books are sensitively handled, and brilliantly staged the film looks a treat throughout. The device of having the actors speak in German accents – with occasional use of actual German – also works surprisingly well. Rush has done it before, Emily Watson’s accent is ok while Sophie Nelisse, who is presumably French, has a bang-on accent.
The only area it lets itself down is an ending which becomes all too sentimental and stretches credulity. There is also a voice over by “death, played by Roger Allam probably a mistake. Allam is many things but being associated with death and evil isn’t one of them.
These are minor quibbles though in a generally successful look at the rise of Fascism in the 1930s, with a quite brilliant central performance from Nelisse as Liesel. To out-act Rush and Watson is quite a feat, to do it when you’re 11 years old is borderline miraculous.
Overall verdict: Fascinating, detailed, absorbing look at Nazi Germany through the eyes of a child, which slowly reveals its secrets and twists. A syrapy ending shouldn’t detract from the efforts of all concerned.
Reviewer: Mike Martin