Before the Fall

Every movie about the Holocaust should be this good, but few are.

Like its singular central character, Before the Fall stands out from the pack.

When movie clichés are presented with rigor and feeling, they can pack a fresh punch.

If Before the Fall feels a tad overdetermined, it also feels emotionally honest. Calmly and carefully, Mr. Gansel makes large points with small scenes.

Unusually compelling, even if it's treacly enough to be "The Chorus" in goose step.

The film is a competent but callow work dealing with a monstrous subject that automatically rejects callowness.

The movie is too middlebrow to show us the superman-type sexual heroics they must've engaged in, or even allow the illicit subtext to float to the surface (as Sokurov does in Father and Son)--instead we get tepid moralizing on dehumanization in the military.