Valkyrie

I saw Valkyrie when it first came out, but not that I've seen it again on DVD, I can contrast first impressions with lasting ones.

To start, Valkyrie stands as one of my favorite WWII movies ever. I normally hate Tom Cruise, because I don't think he can act anything but angry young men, but in Valkyrie, he plays Von Stauffenberg in a way that I don't think anyone else could have. The intensity and passion he brings to the role is astonishing. Terrence Stamp, William Nye, Tom Wilkinson, Sir Kenneth Brannagh, and a host of other great British actors fill the other roles to bring the acting to a caliber not often seen in hollywood war movies. There have been some criticisms of the "Nazis" not having German accents, but I have no problem with that, as I can clearly understand everybody and what they're saying, something not true when actors use fake accents and mix the odd Russian or German phrase into what they're saying.

The action and suspense are also brilliantly executed. Even though we all know that Valkyrie failed, I found myself on the edge of myself as they were executing it, from the moment the explosive is placed to the point when Hitler reveals himself to be alive. The movie's pace serves to highlight the tension it creates, though the pace is slightly too fast to give the sense of the passage of time that happened in reality.

The true strength of Valkyrie, and what makes it such a phenomenal movie, are the characters. At the beginning of the movie, General Tresckow (Kenneth Brannagh) says "If we do nothing, this will always be Hitler's Germany. We have to show the world that we were not all like him." This is the entire point of the movie; it shows the men in Germany who didn't just sit with their thumbs up their ass, but who got up and decided to do something about it. It's a risky venture to show men affiliated with Nazi Germany to be human, let alone to be heroes. If the venture had been attempted with lesser actors or a lesser director than Bryan Singer, it would have failed. As it is, however, the characters of the movie are so realistic, so believable, that we overcome the fact that they wore Nazi uniforms and see them as heroes. My Grandmother, a staunchly liberal Jewess who will remain so until she dies, point blank refused to see the movie because "Nazis were all animals. I don't want to see anything that tries to tell me any different." And indeed, we do see the absolute animals who inhabited and thrived in the Nazi Party. Hitler (David Bamber) in the main scene we see him, talks about the Valkyries of legend. "Killing the weak and preserving the strong. One cannot be a National Socialist if one does not understand [valkyries]" showing the Darwinian viewpoint of Hitler. Stauffenberg, on the other hand, is shown, although never explicitly, to be a Christian, praying in church and always wearing his cross. It is this conflict that serves as the focal point of the movie; Stauffenberg's faith and believe that he is doing good versus Hitler's evil, borne out of a misguided desire to do the same.

The movie ends as we knew it would; Valkyrie fails, the plotters were executed or committed suicide. As Tom Cruise shouts his defiant cry "Long live Sacred Germany," after a list of the plotters and how they died, we are left wondering; would we have done the same? Would we, as the movie said, "put our principles above personal gain?" Stauffenberg had a wife and family, and I have been to a couple of their estates. Most of the men who plotted against Hitler had everything to lose, and yet they all, unashamedly, defied him. Movies ought to make the audience think, and Valkyrie certainly does that. If you're only going to watch one World War II movie, it ought to be Valkyrie.


"The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. None of us can bewail his own death; those who consented to join our circle put on the Robe of Nessus. A human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions." -General Tresckow, instigator of the July 20 Plot
***** out of *****