Nuremberg critique, a pertinent recreation that connects past and present

What was the result of World War II? Japan’s surrender after the dropping of the atomic bomb? The liberation of the concentration camps by the allies? The holding of international trials that put Nazi leaders in the dock? This is one of the central axes of the very pertinent and compelling Nuremberg, the film written and directed by James Vanderbilt (The fountain of eternal youth) based on the 2014 book The Nazi and the psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai in which he narrates Hermann Göring’s relationship with the American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley.

In addition to the historical recreation, which is obviously one of the strengths of a film that is shocking but also accurate and challenging for viewers, there is a clear desire to make us think about the precedent that the Nuremberg judicial process represented at the level of international law, but also how what happened in Nazi Germany is linked to the present and the chances of human beings repeating one of the most embarrassing chapters in their recent history.

Therefore, its importance does not lie only in its high production values, in the careful interpretations or in the details of one of the most massive and longest rehearsals that had as its objective determine the responsibilities of the leaders, officials and collaborators of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist regime in the abuses and crimes against humanity committed in the name of the Third Reich from September 1, 1939 until the fall of the regime in May 1945but above all it seeks to relate everything that is narrated with the present, assuming a clear warning that that “textbook” terror that stirred and angered the crowds will be replicated (each person draws their own conclusions).

The monstrous human being

The speech of Nuremberg It is devastating and transcends the dialectic between Nazis and allies to talk about something much more disturbing than the facts themselves and the barbarity of mass murders perpetrated in a systematic and even industrialized way: It’s a film that talks about human nature and the limits of our actions. It is a huge and efficient pretext to force us to think about the resurgence of ideological radicalism, the current wars and the delimitation of the responsibilities of each one of us for action or omission, because what it makes clear is that it was people like those who read and write this criticism who did what they did.

The starting point is the official end of the Second World War on September 2, 1945 and the beginning of negotiations to try to bring to trial the survivors who did not commit suicide as Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels did.

It was an unprecedented event: the creation of a court composed of the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia, marking the beginning of “international justice” that would lay the foundations for a specific international jurisprudence on war of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, the film does not focus exclusively on the trial itself and its peculiarities. Not even within its scope, as the trials lasted a decade, but it addresses different fronts: the position of the Church, the forgiveness of those affected, the cult of the most radical leader, the death sentences… And, above all, the relationship between two men that develops before our eyes: Hitler’s heir, Hermann Göring, and his psychiatrist Douglas Kelley.

Russell Crowe’s charisma lends a bestial force to a film that uses his charm to demonstrate his character’s magnetism in contrast to a much more vulnerable but also cunning Rami Malek tasked, on the one hand, with treating the prisoners to prevent them from taking their own lives before being tried and, on the other hand, with extracting from them all possible information to prevent them from getting away with it.

Nuremberg It is a complex, multifaceted and at times very uncomfortable film, which is based on the disconcerting basis that anyone can be capable of committing despicable acts.. Be careful, no one is safe from fanaticism.