Reviews

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  ★★★½ review by Bóinez on Letterboxd

  Una buena película sobre cómo se investigaron y juzgaron los crímenes franquistas cuando acabó la dictadura.

  Ay, no, calla, que va sobre cómo se investigaron y juzgaron los crímenes nazis en Alemania después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

  Qué despiste más tonto.

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  ★★★★ review by manousos on Letterboxd

  No one should be surprised that even Germany had to cocoon itself with a thick layer of barbed wire to keep from having to face what the country not only had just been through but many had actively and enthusiastically participated in. It's the early 60s and there are still people who when asked what "Aushwitz" was say, "Oh, it was a POW camp just like the British, French and Russians kept prisoners of war in." So, obviously even in West Germany the process of de-Nazification took a long time to penetrate a lot of thick skulls and denial. Of course, it wouldn't have been half so easy had not the Nazis themselves been such ferocious note takers of every inhuman act they performed and the Americans kept and filed away afterwards. Fortunately we have the idealistic young lawyer, Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) working for the Frankfurt city government to tend to the matter once he becomes alerted to the fact that a ruthless Nazi commandant is currently teaching children at an elementary school but the young lawyer is soon inundated by the denial of the culprits who slipped right back into German middle class life without a faretheewell and the other Germans who just don't want to have to hear it and remember it. Before he knows it or wanted it he realizes he's taken an enormous bull by the horns. Though there's very little violence in the film, just people reading Nazi-written descriptions of events that happened in the camps has a blood curdling effect. The recreation of a post war Germany quietly trying to rebuild itself and march to a new kind of state drum roll are elegantly recreated by the director, Giulio Ricciarelli and the film ends up, despite all its disappointments and false starts faced by the young lawyer, of being quite a moving drama.

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  ★★★★½ review by kunerto197 on Letterboxd

  Dieser Film ist filmtechnisch und schauspielerisch keine Meisterleistung, aber der Thematik muss man einfach interessiert und kopfschüttelnd folgen und deshalb ist dieser Film so gut.

  
  
  Wie schon bei "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" geht es um die gescheiterte Entnazifizierung, nur dass dieser Film deutlich macht wieviele unzählige NS-Verbrecher, das beste Bespiel dafür ist Mengele, ungestraft ihr Leben nach 1945 weiter lebten.

  Solche Filme sind deutsche Geschichte und es ist gruselig zu sehen, dass damals rechtsextreme Nazis in der Gesellschaft geduldet wurden, dies darf heute keineswegs passieren. (und ich bin nicht radikal links eingestellt.)

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  ★★★★½ review by Peter Valerio on Letterboxd

  A German prosecutor brings 19 SS officers from Auschwitz to trial for their crimes. The film begins in 1958, and post-war Germany hasn't begun to come to terms with the past. For what is essentially a legal procedural, the film is emotionally draining.

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  ★★★½ review by tyriter nafees on Letterboxd

  Labyrinth of Lies is a very mediocre film by the standard of selection for Best foreign film Oscar 2016. The film is about a prosecutor who who dares to pursue handful of SS officers who had served at the Auschwitz death camp. The film is very predictable and seems to be made to please its audiences. Twists are not substantial enough to evoke any sentimental value out of it, but still few scenes are done quite perfectly and lead performance is matured and gives some emotional value to the film.

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