The premiere of The shadow of the Commander in Argentine theaters is an exception to each and every one of the disputes that there were (and are) between exhibition complexes and streaming platforms for the commercial exploitation windows. The fact is that the documentary centered on the figure of Hans Jürgen Höss will not comply with the 45 days of exclusivity that theaters require. Quite the opposite, because its arrival in theaters (many of which did not schedule Argentina, 1985 two years ago for that reason) comes almost two months after its launch almost worldwide on the Max platform.
The reasons for this anomaly are probably to be found in the direct link between Daniela Völker’s film and Area of interestby Jonathan Glazer. The old man we now see moving around with a walker is the same boy who spent much of his childhood in a house next to the Auschwitz extermination camp, created and run with an iron fist by his father, the Nazi leader Rudolf Höss, without having the slightest idea of what was happening on the other side of the fence.
But to The shadow of the Commander He is not so interested in the mixture of the sinister and childhood, but in how later generations dealt with it. While the clash between one of the most responsible for the largest genocide of the 20th century and the memories of him as Hans’ kind father is one of the central threads, Völker adds other voices to make the matter more complex. On the one hand, there is Hans’ son, an evangelical pastor who is very clear about his grandfather’s responsibility and lives with guilt under the weight of his legacy. And, on the other, there is an Auschwitz survivor and her daughter.
Structured around interviews, archive footage and Höss’s autobiography (which her son claims he didn’t know she had written), Völker’s film thickens as it progresses. What is initially somewhat chaotic slowly begins to take the form of a game of mirrors in which both the survivor and Hans prefer to move on and leave what happened in their memories, while their children choose to look at the wounds head on as a way of closing off the trauma.
And perhaps the most interesting thing about The shadow of the Commanderin addition to its testimonial power, is the way in which it shows how misinformation can be a defense mechanism, as well as that a good part of the denialist speeches (such as that of Hans’ sister) or discriminatory speeches of yesterday are still alive.
Join the community OtherCinemas/Club
Subscriptions are the best way for readers to directly support independent journalism ventures and help sustain a quality product that maintains access to all its content for freeIn addition, you have access to a wide range of benefits and exclusive content.