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Film Search
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13 Minutes
Biography, Historical drama
The last time director Oliver Hirschbiegel ventured into a story Nazi Germany, the meme-sterpiece Downfall was born; this fact-based story approaches the era from different angle. It’s the story of Georg Elser (Christian Friedel), a German carpenter behind a failed November 1939 attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler in Munich. The timeline alternates between a Nazi official (Burghart Klaussner) interrogating Elser, and the previous seven years, including his relationship with a married woman (Katharina Schüttler). Hirschbiegel doesn’t back off on the scenes of Elser undergoing torture—warning to the squeamish—by officials convinced he couldn’t have acted alone, but the 1939 section is by far the least interesting. Much more compelling is watching Elser’s hometown gradually fall under the control of the Nazis throughout the 1930s, with the libertine Elser growing increasingly convinced that Hitler’s Germany is going too far. The central love story might feel incidental to the focus on Elser’s political awakening, but Friedel’s performance at least anchors a story about a passionate man, which also provides an interesting origin story for how radicalism is born.
Official Site: sonyclassics.com/13minutes/#
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Producer: Boris Ausserer, Fred Breinersdorfer, Manfred Hattendorf and Götz Bolten
Cast: Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaußner, Johann Bülow, Felix Eitner, David Zimmerschied, Rüdiger Klink and Simon Licht
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Producer: Boris Ausserer, Fred Breinersdorfer, Manfred Hattendorf and Götz Bolten
Cast: Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaußner, Johann Bülow, Felix Eitner, David Zimmerschied, Rüdiger Klink and Simon Licht
