Constantin Costa-Gavras
Amen

THE REVIEW

What exactly happened in the Vatican during the Second World War and particularly during the systematic extermination of the Jews by Hitler?

It's a monumental question that Greek director Constantin Costa Gavras attempts to analyze in his "Amen". Presented at the Berlin Festival in 2002, the film sparked a myriad of controversies due to its poster (banned in many countries, including Italy) and because of the theme addressed which many have described as "anti-Catholic".

Amen is born from the adaptation of the play "The Deputy" by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth. A story that tells of an SS officer, Kurt Gerstein (played by Ulrich Tukur), who, tasked with overseeing military hygiene, learns of the absolutely incredible practices that Jews confined in extermination camps undergo. Driven by a sense of humanity unknown to his fellow SS officers, Gerstein is determined to disclose what he has seen, appealing particularly to the Church and the Vatican. He is assisted by young Riccardo (Mathieu Kassovitz), who also wishes to somehow help these people.

Where does Costa Gavras' film lead to? "Amen" is not the usual war movie about the concentration camp reality: the reference remains "Schindler's List," but Amen draws from Spielberg's masterpiece the drama of the story and much less the life within the camp. What concerns the director the most is to demonstrate the blind obstinacy of the Church's organs in diverting what Hitler was doing into simple and rapid conclusions. No cleric approached by Gerstein and his friend Riccardo was able to guarantee the stop of deportations, not even the Pope. Everyone seemed too intent on hiding behind a veil of shamelessly tainted silence by fear and indifference.

Here are the reasons why "Amen" was not well-received by the Vatican: a film too "alive" and realistic to be dismissed as a provocation. In Gavras' film, there is truth, there is history, there is the existential difficulty of two men, as well as that of an entire people.

"There is life as it is, and there is life as it should be. Unfortunately, we must live in life as it is."