Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg

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Movie
German title Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg
Original title God afton, Mr. Wallenberg
Country of production Sweden ,
Hungary
original language Swedish ,
Hungarian ,
German
Publishing year 1990
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Kjell Grede
script Kjell Grede
production Katinka Faragó
music Janos Solyom ,
Frans Helmersson
camera Esa Vuorinen
cut Darek Hodor
occupation

Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg (Swedish God afton, Mr. Wallenberg - En Passionshistoria från verkligheten ) is a Swedish resistance drama from 1990 . It takes place during the Second World War and tells the true story of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg , who became famous for his efforts to save the Hungarian Jews. He is played by Stellan Skarsgård .

action

In 1943, Raoul Wallenberg, a member of one of the richest families in Sweden , is on a business trip in Hungary . He sells delicatessen and is in conversation with a customer when suddenly the train windows are darkened. Wallenberg opens the blackout and sees a standing train on the track leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp , from whose wagons corpses are thrown. A man manages to escape and hugs his dead son. He looks Wallenberg in the eye when he is shot by the guards.

Stockholm in June 1944: On the instructions of the Swedish government and under the protection of the United States, Wallenberg is to be sent to Budapest on a diplomatic mission . He is supposed to provide Hungary with Swedish protective passports that are related to Sweden. There is conflicting opinion about his ability to do so. He is considered mediocre, has only achieved average school performance despite ideal conditions and does not work according to his origins. He is neither religious nor political, but is not afraid of death, as his father died before he was born and was his contact person from an early age when he was dead. What is ultimately convincing, in addition to Wallenberg's influential family, is his report about the man who held his dead son in his arms and was shot in front of Wallenberg's eyes.

In December 1944, Wallenberg is in Budapest. He has housed numerous threatened Budapesters in houses that are officially under Swedish protection. He employed 400 Jews in the Swedish consulate to save them from deportation. He uses tricks to rescue people from already closed train wagons by pretending that they are holders of a Swedish protection pass. He gains respect through his self-confident demeanor. Wallenberg is considered a savior in the eyes of the Budapest Jews and is notorious among those in power for his tenacity.

His new focus is on an actually evacuated house with 20 "forgotten" Jews. He distributes protection passes to everyone in the house, visits it regularly in order to be present in the storm and to be able to save the people. He fails at first because of the young Marja, whose two daughters were shot in front of her eyes in the house. In winter she only wears a coat and does not want to be saved. She plans to stand naked in front of the soldiers during the deportation to make it clear to them that everyone they shoot is a real person. The days go by, but the people in the house remain undisturbed. Wallenberg tries to save more Jews, but comes too late time and again. Its influence is waning the closer the Red Army gets to Budapest, especially as its actions are increasingly falling out of favor in Sweden and the United States. They want to order him back to Sweden, but Wallenberg refuses, since he is not a diplomat and is therefore not bound by diplomatic instructions.

One day, 3,000 Hungarian soldiers march in front of the house with the 20 forgotten Jews. The house is stormed and Wallenberg tries in vain to save the people from arrest based on their passports. Some people are shot, but most of them are loaded onto a waiting car. The car does not start due to bad gasoline, so the prisoners wait on the van. The mission turns out to be wrong because no one has requested 3,000 soldiers. The leader of the campaign, who does not want to introduce himself to Wallenberg, remains on the van. Every day, Wallenberg drives to the stationary van, wants to bribe the stranger and even looks for an empty house for the prisoners. During a loud discussion with the stranger about whether or not the right to be arrested, soldiers around him kill several of the prisoners, including a rabbi. The stranger blames Wallenberg's presence for the massacre.

One day Adolf Eichmann flees Budapest and with him his entourage. It's Christmas and Wallenberg realizes that the stranger is ready to give up. He advises him to shoot himself because Eichmann did not take him with him. The stranger initially suggests that all Jews would have to die on the transporter, as only a release would make the shooting of the few a crime. The stranger finally reveals to Wallenberg that his name is Ferenc Moser and tells the prisoners to leave. A soldier goes crazy and shoots the people on the car. Almost all of them are killed. The few survivors take refuge in the house in which they had previously hidden. Wallenberg finds access to Marja, she dresses and gives in to her grief. Wallenberg himself despaired of his inadequate influence, especially since he constantly sees shootings and deportations, against which he can no longer do anything. Food deliveries he organized for the ghetto in Budapest were stopped, houses under Swedish protection were stormed and the residents shot or captured. Wallenberg knows that he is himself the target of planned assassinations. These are not implemented, as Wallenberg's presence in Budapest calms the conscience of the world, as a minister tells him.

Shortly before the evacuation of the Budapest ghetto, Wallenberg went to the commanding General Schmidhuber in a desperate attempt to save the 65,000 people there. He explains to him that if the ghetto is cleared, he will not be spoken of as a soldier, but as a murderer. Not only the United States but also Schmidhuber's family members had received detailed reports on what was going on in the ghetto and the planned actions. A little later the Red Army liberated Budapest. Marja survived and there were no new victims among the other people in the house. Wallenberg wants to continue to take care of the Jews he has rescued and to enter into dialogue with the new Russian rulers. Despite warnings from members of the Swedish embassy, ​​he went to the Soviet commander in January 1945, but never returned from there.

production

Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg is based on the true story of Raoul Wallenberg. After an audition in 1943 and June 1944, the film deals with the last three weeks of Wallenberg before his arrest by the Red Army. The shooting took place on location in Budapest and ran from October 2 to December 17, 1989. Inger Pehrsson created the costumes and Laszlo Gardonyi created the production design . In addition to Swedish, Hungarian and German are spoken in the film.

Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg came to Swedish cinemas on October 5th, 1990. The film first screened in Germany at the 1991 Berlinale and was released on DVD in 2004.

criticism

The lexicon of international films called Guten Abend, Herr Wallenberg “a film that impresses with its humane message and describes a race for life and death and speaks out for humanity in a time of barbarism.” Cinema named the film “The sparsely filmed, yet impressive vita of a man who surpassed himself. Conclusion: The content counts here, and it is strong ”.

Awards

The film is a four-time winner of the Swedish Guldbagge Film Award. It won in the categories of Best Film , Best Director , Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography . He also received the Swedish Film Critics' Prize in 1990.

Good evening, Mr Wallenberg was Sweden's entry for the 1990 Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category , but was not shortlisted. The film also ran in the competition for the Golden Bear at the 1991 Berlinale . The film was nominated for a Golden Hugo for Best Feature Film at the Chicago International Film Festival .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. See God afton, Mr. Wallenberg on tcm.com
  2. See Misc Notes on tcm.com
  3. See God afton, Herr Wallenberg on sfi.se
  4. Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg on cinema.de
  6. See Berlinale program 1991 on berlinale.de
  7. See good evening, Mr. Wallenberg on imdb.com