the banality of evil in its smallest details

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE

January 20, 1942, Villa Marlier, in the south-west of Berlin. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Central Security Office, invited senior administration officials from III^e Reich. During this meeting, which history will remember as the “Wannsee Conference”, from the name of the nearby lake, they will have to agree on the administrative, technical and economic organization of the extermination of the Jews of Europe.

The film opens with a large empty room. A man meticulously places labels bearing the names of the participants on a long table, followed by a secretary with notepads and pencils. A waiter brings carafes of water and glasses. It is through these images of preparations that the film launches the story of the planning of a genocide which aims to ratify the implementation of the “final solution”. In the background, Berliners express their “deep gratitude” to the Fuhrer.

sharp cutting

Based on the minutes of the meeting drawn up by Adolf Eichmann, head of the units responsible for Jewish affairs and the evacuation of Jews within the Reich Central Security Office, the German director Matti Geschonneck, little known in France, chose to leave as little room as possible for randomness and fiction, in a quasi-camera, shot at a place called.

The minimalist style, without music and without brilliance, adheres to its subject to make tangible the banality of evil, as defined by Hannah Arendt: it is about the transport of the Jews, the personnel costs, the conveniences of the executioners so that they keep their spirits up… “I would rather the Jews evaporate into thin air”said one of the guests.

In a sharp cut that could be described as topographical, the film focuses on exchanges, full of euphemisms and numbers, which make criminals look like respectable technocrats. If the Wannsee conference had already been the subject of a fiction for HBO, Conspiracy, in 2001, with Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth, we are grateful to Matti Geschonneck for not having pushed his actors into performance, favoring characters who are all equal. The lunch break appears to be one of the most terrifying moments, reminding us that this social gathering is a stomach that will devour everything.