The Decent One

Himmler in one of his letters says that “in life, one must be always decent, courageous and kind-hearted,” and “decent” is apparently how he saw himself right up to the time he swallowed a cyanide capsule after he was captured by the British.

The fascination of the film is to see his anti-Semitic development and how matter-of-factly and self-righteously he carries out his monstrous race-cleansing.

At its most effective, though, The Decent One reveals a psychological portrait of a man devoted to his family yet consumed by a soul-blackening and horrifically destructive cause.

Lapa’s story is in the disconnect between the words and the visuals, or the visuals and what we know to be true, or even the words from one moment to the next.

Apart from the devastating material itself, some of Lapa’s aesthetic choices are extremely off-putting.

It’s perhaps too focused on the Reichsfuhrer’s personal life... while the director’s decision to add sound effects to silent images sometimes feels uncalled for.

Most of the documents that Lapa quotes from are, as presented, unrevealing — even offensive.