Death and the Devil (Peter Nestler)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | death and Devil |
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| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 56 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Nestler |
| script | Peter Nestler |
| production | Dieter Reifarth |
| music | Franz Bielefeld |
| camera | Peter Nestler Eric von Rosen |
| cut | Dieter Reifarth |
| occupation | |
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Speaker:
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Tod und Teufel is a documentary in black and white and color from Germany by director Peter Nestler from 2009. The film premiered on in the Munich Film Museum . It was first broadcast on TV on 3sat on September 22, 2009. The film documents the life of Eric von Rosen , the director's grandfather, and focuses on the racism of the colonial era and the emergence of National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.
content
Right at the beginning of the film, Peter Nestler states: “I never wanted to make a film about this grandfather before, his path along the abyss was uncanny to me, but the questions remained and became clearer. Now I'm looking for the answers. "
Peter Nestler's grandfather, Eric von Rosen , lived from 1879 to 1948 and was a Swedish aristocrat, explorer, ethnologist, hunter and National Socialist. However, this film is not primarily about Eric von Rosen's close relationship with National Socialist Germany, but rather about his grandfather's excursions to South America, Africa and Lapland, on the basis of which racism and colonialism as well as the person of his grandfather are discussed. The main question is which developments led to the Holocaust .
Nestler has his grandfather's diaries, notes, photos, and even films available to portray him. Only once does he add his own recordings that he shot at the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm . Different speakers take on different narrative perspectives: those of grandson Peter Nestler, Eric von Rosen, biologist Robert Fries and a museum employee. With such an assembly technique, Nestler succeeds in drawing a complex picture of his grandfather.
The film consists of five major parts: (1) a general introduction to the person of Count Eric von Rosen; (2) the first research trip to South America; (3) his grandfather's passion for hunting; (4) the expedition to Africa; (5) his support for the troops of Carl Gustav von Mannerheim; and 6) Erik von Rosen's involvement in National Socialism, particularly in the first half of the 1930s.
Using the pictures and diaries of the research expeditions, Nestler explains the devastation wrought by European colonialism. It quickly becomes clear how closely the ethnology of this period was linked to racial biology and racism. Von Rosen carries out biometric measurements on Indians, the leader of the first expedition digs up the mummies of buried Indians on behalf of researching racial biologists just as safely as fossils in the sandstone of the Gran Chaco. But another rose is also visible: a self-appointed and nonetheless enthusiastic ethnographer, who studies the Batwa people with devotion and collects thousands of ethnographies, describes and tries to combat the hunger of its wearers and the widespread sleeping sickness, or ultimately in a kind of inner turning away from the National Socialism burns the gifts from his brother-in-law Hermann Göring in the garden of his palace. Also the closeness to nature and his passion as a hunter is given a lot of space.
Nestler stays close to the finds from his grandfather's archives and lets the characters speak for themselves. Only in a few places does the film become speculative, for example when Nestler speculates that von Rosen must have known about the atrocities in the Belgian Congo .
background
In an interview, Peter Nestler states that he found boxes with pictures from the Finnish Civil War that had fascinated him very early on in the attic of Rockelstadt Castle , his grandfather's former residence. His grandfather was an excellent photographer and the photos of the bear hunt and the Indians were fantastic. And there was also his commitment to National Socialism in the early 1930s. This would be a story he would like to tell, but on the other hand this story would be deeply personal. That's why he initially rejected the idea. It was only after reading several texts from his grandfather that he realized that this was going to be a fantastic film and he began to tackle it. In doing so, he could have drawn on the excellent material available in its entirety.
reception
The blog L'emergere del possibile refers to the double function of the film: on the one hand as a commentary on the ethnography of the 19th and 20th centuries against the background of racism and anti-Semitism, on the other hand as an examination of one's own family history, in which the means of the film the person of the grandfather will be recreated.
The Viennale's announcement about the film indicates the author's interest in questions relating to the emergence of racism in Europe and complicity in the Holocaust.
Senscritique interprets the film title as the tension between Eric Rosen's passion for death (the hunt) and the devil (Hermann Göring), with which von Rosen was not only related, but also ideologically.
Tod und Teufel is currently available on a DVD with the complete works of Peter Nestler.
Web links
- Death and the Devil in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Death and the devil in the online film database
- Death and the devil at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ A conversation between Walter and Peter Nestler Grennberger. In: Yale Union. Retrieved August 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Francesca Rusalen: Death and the Devil (Death and the Devil). L'ermergere del possibile, April 1, 2015, accessed August 3, 2017 (Italian).
- ↑ Death and the Devil. Viennale, 2017, accessed on August 4, 2017 (German).
- ↑ Death and the Devil. In: Senscritique. Retrieved August 4, 2017 (French).
- ↑ Kay Hoffmann: Peter Nestler. Poetic provocateur. Films 1962-2009. In: 5 DVDs in a slipcase with booklet. absolutely media.