Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich

Introduction

Much has been written and thought about Adolf Hitler and his rise and fall as Nazi dictator and fascist during the 1930's and 1940's. But what about his early years? His childhood and his military service that ultimately shaped his character into the man he was to become? Just what happened during those formative years? Dawn of Evil, adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright and theatre director George Tabori, looks to explore the period of the late 1900's whilst Hitler was a struggling artist in Vienna, Austria.

Tabori, who died in 2007, had lived in Hitler's Berlin until 1935 when he was forced to leave due to his Jewish background, but his father died in Auschwitz in 1944. Tabori became both a screenwriter and playwright, penning the screenplay to Hitchcock's I Confess (1953) and a number of other prior to Mein Kampf in 1987. Originally a play, the screenplay was adapted for the big screen in 2009 and one thing to bear in mind is that a Tabori trademark is the use of humour to explore the rather strained (to say the least) relationship between the Germans and the Jews.

So, Adolf Hitler (Tom Schilling) hitches a ride on a train from Linz to Vienna in his bid to be accepted into the prestigious Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Arriving penniless, he finds accomodation at a homeless refuge where he will have to work to earn his rent and is taken under the wing of elder Jewish male Schlomo Herzl (Gotz George). Schlomo is a master storyteller, casting an unlikely spell over young Austrian girl Gretchen (Anna Unterberger), and forever boasting about his work on his unpenned novel Mein Kampf, which translates as My Struggle. Despite Schlomo's tutelage and advice, Hitler is a pretty ungrateful bugger who is already carrying anti-Semetic thoughts and not scared of spouting the rhetoric.

Schlomo is undeterred and tries to coach Hitler through his entrance exams to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (he fails abysmally), whereupon he ends up taking Hitler's wrath for his own failure and lack of artistic skill. Schlomo then persuades the angry young man that with his lying capabilities, he may be better destined for a career in politics - unaware of exactly where this will lead. Hitler starts to fall in with a rather anti-semetic crowd who sympathise with his rhetoric and as his influence grows, he finds the courage to try and draw Gretchen away from his mentor.

Conclusion

I have to say that none of the blurb I was provided with led me to understand that Dawn of Evil was not only based on a play about Hitler's early life but also one that played a little loose with the facts. Despite the fact that a lot of the events shown in this film would happen in later life post WW1, you're shown hints of them coming to the fore during the Vienna years and unwittingly brought to the fore by his Jewish mentor. So you get to see Schlomo trim Hitler's messy moustache into the neat clipped more famous version, the idea of writing a book called Mein Kampf, the Swastika being an imprint on his cheek from a borrowed cushion he slept on and his early practices at political rhetoric bringing to the fore the familiar posturing seen in more famous newsreels of his oratory. I suspect this is all Tabori's idea of the ultimate joke, that a Jew of all people would have led a young Hitler down the path that lead to the downfall and annihilation of most of his people.

There is a lot of humour in this film, actually marking it more as a farce than anything else. It follows more of a theatrical flow than a motion picture if you follow the cadences within the dialogue and some of the set pieces. It's also acted rather well, especially by Gotz George and Tom Schilling - the dynamic between the two is quite something. Schlomo is a paternal figure to Hitler, who accepts help with complete ingratitude as if it's actually his birthright and not to shy to throw it back in his mentor's face. Schlomo understands this but rather than turn his back on the ungrateful and insecure youth, tries a different tack to guide him to adulthood, failing each time.

My problem with this film is really with the marketing. The artwork and the blurb that accompanies it doesn't hint at the style of things to come and as this is a theatrical interpretation of his early years rather than a more straightforward autobiography, I worry that people may feel more than a little short changed by this. There's no indepth analysis of what actually drove Hitler or what fuelled his anti-semetic views (which were pretty commonplace, it must be said), also no coverage of his military service where he won the Iron Cross, Second and First Class, but then returned home after the end of the war convinced that Germany had been betrayed by the Jews. Everything is instead self-contained within the period of his stay in Vienna and the theatrical style may be hard going for some viewers.

As someone very much interested in his period of rising power in Germany, I was looking to this DVD to provide me with some insight into the young Hitler, and whilst I found this film relatively interesting, ultimately it didn't really give me anything new as it was clearly over exaggerated and overblown.

Be careful before trying this one..