The Captain 4K 2017 GERMAN Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

In the last days of World War II, an exhausted and hungry 19-year-old private kidnaps the captain's uniform. Pretending to be an officer, he gathers a group of deserters and is going by all possible means to fight his way through devastated Nazi Germany.

Review 4K Movie

In 2013, Konstantin Lopushansky, one of the notable directors of the "auteur cinema", created the film "Role" in collaboration with Pavel Finn according to the script. The main character, a famous Russian theater actor, voluntarily decided on something more than a theater. I decided on something other than a theatrical role. He decided to "play" another life. The life of a real-life commander of the Red Army (after whose death the diaries remained). And crossing the border of Bolshevik Russia, he plunged into the existential space of a country built on terror and violence.

In 2017, the director of the commercial Hollywood mainstream, Robert Schwentke, created the film Captain from his own script. The protagonist, a deserted corporal of the Wehrmacht, due to circumstances, decided to pass himself off as a non-existent Luftwaffe captain in the last days of National Socialist Germany, built on terror and violence.

The script for the film "Captain" is based on a real story, thus giving the horror of what is happening a special depth. The story of a Wehrmacht deserter who managed to escape punishment, and with the help of several deserters contrived to organize the execution of former German soldiers who were arrested for desertion.

In the spring of 1945, Germany was clearly losing the war on the Western and Eastern fronts to many (but not for official propaganda). Conscripts who were previously expelled for health reasons or due to unsuitable age were taken into the army. Therefore, there were many soldiers in the army who either did not want to fight or were afraid of the horrors of war. Hence the numerous deserters who needed food in their flight, hence the looting of the peaceful German population. The starving civilian population greeted the deserters with fear and hatred, handing them over to special teams or, if possible, destroying them with their own forces. Germans against Germans.

In the spring of 1945, by order of the Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany, Heinrich Himmler, special teams were looking for deserters, looters and evaders in Germany. The death penalty awaited all of them. Germans against Germans.

Against the background of this (essentially civil) war, Corporal Willie Harold in the form of a captain impersonates the Fuehrer's envoy. Thus, the life story takes the form of a parable, an allegory. The story of the scam of a cowardly and lying corporal turns into a parable about the tempting power of power that is based on terror and violence.

Robert Schwentke managed to create an atmosphere of otherworldly horror in the frame. Max Hubacher, in the image of the transformed Willie Harold, manages to convey some Mephistophelian notes in the behavior and actions of the Fuhrer envoy who does not exist in reality with a special task.

The horror of history in many ways becomes more ominous, not so much from the actions of the self-proclaimed commissioner, but from the reaction of others to what is happening. Robert Schwantke does not blame anyone, does not look for those responsible for what is happening. It provides an opportunity to draw conclusions for the viewer.

The eerie "theater of death" towards the finale turns into a surreal carnival, referring to the "Death of the Gods" by Luchino Visconti. Robert Schwentke remains in the mainstream of German cinema, artistically exploring the nature of National Socialism and the shadowy, almost satanic, attraction of one person's power over another.