♥♥♥♥
+ Best German Movie of the Year
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| Viggo Mortensen sports a swastika on his black tie and looks dejectedly downwards on this praise-filled poster for Vicente Amorim's Good |
Professor Halder, a literary man in 1930s Germany, learns to adapt himself to the new circumstances, when the Nazis assume power, and despite the protests of his Jewish friend he is appointed as an SS officer.
Good is written by John Wrathall (The Liability (2012)), based on the same-titled 1981 play by C.P. Taylor (And a Nightingale Sang (1977)), and directed by Vicente Amorim (The Middle of the Earth (2003)).
A heavy story comes to life here as an elegant film thanks to distinguished photography (by Andrew Dunn (Precious (2009))) and a characteristically outstanding performance from Viggo Mortensen (The Reflecting Skin (1990)) as Halder. This is a difficult character, whom we would otherwise be prone to reject swiftly as overly naive or as a fictitious construct, but here he stands out as a realistic, painful figure: A good, educated man, who simply doesn't have the imagination to realize what incredible atrocities his countrymen are actually in the midst of carrying out, and who therefore does what we humans are so apt at and simply adapts to the changing circumstances.
Good is a heavy and provocative film, - and it is very well-made.
Related post:
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.1 times its cost)
[Good premiered 8 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 96 minutes. Producer Miriam Segal had wished to adapt Taylor's play since seeing it in 1981. Mortensen had also seen and been impressed by the play in London in 1981. Shooting took place in Budapest, Hungary around May 2007. The film opened #68 to a 9k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked the following - and last - weekend at #66 in 8 theaters, grossing 27k $ (1.8 % of the total gross). The film's biggest 3 markets were Spain with 1.1 mil. $ (73.3 %), Brazil with 202k $ (13.5 %) and the UK with 89k $ (5.9 %). Amorim returned with Dirty Hearts (2011). Mortensen returned in The Road (2009); Jason Isaacs (Green Zone (2010)) in 2 TV-series and a short prior to his theatrical return in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). Good is rotten at 33 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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