Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage) is
a dramatization of the last days of Sophie
Scholl''s life. Who is Sophie Scholl,
you ask? She was one of the most famous members of the resistance against the
Nazis in World War II. In 1943, she was executed, but not before she went through
laborious interrogation sequences.
A German film, Sophie Scholl was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign
Language Picture, and deservedly so. Starring a great, relatively unknown cast
(at least to American eyes), the movie is a riveting and well-paced drama despite
the fact that most of the film simply takes place in an interrogation room.
The movie is very dialogue heavy, but as with all good foreign films the subtitles
soon blend into the background to the point where you don''t even notice the
movie is in another language.
Because the movie is dialogue-driven, a good cast was needed to properly carry
the scenes from beginning to end. Julia Jentsch does a tremendously good job
of nearly single-handedly carrying the film. Her version of Scholl is very basic,
very subdued, yet at the same time strong and emotional. Since it''s a foreign
film it is much easier to notice the non-verbal mannerisms of the actor, and
Jentsch''s performance is quite brilliant. Her character always carries this
innocence about her, even though she and everyone else knows that she is indeed
guilty of the crime charged against her (printing and distributing anti-Nazi
pamphlets). She never cries, but you can see the sadness in her eyes, and at
the same time she carries a defiance without actually revealing it in a blatant
way.