“I confess that I am prejudiced,” Kristl said as she turned to Henry.
She had to blink a few times before she refocused, because the lights had flooded the theater and temporarily blinded them. Henry had yet to fix that. He meant for the light to gradually increase in strength with the music, but instead it suddenly bathed in a blinding white light. He had however managed that the music would start softly and then rise to an acceptable level. Acceptable meant that they both could hear each other. Normally they would start talking when the credits started to roll, but on request of Kristl they had sat in silence until the black at the end of the credit roll would show.
“Why is that? Because it is an old movie?”
“No… It is because it got some of the best actors from around that time in it. Laurence Olivier, James Mason and Gregory Peck. I can not help to like movies which contain the latter two. I am a bit so-so on Olivier, but he is considered by most to be one of the best actors to date.”
“Is it insulting when I say that it’s an old men movie?”
“It depends on what you intend. Is an old man movie, something bad? It is true, that it is a remarkable movie in that way. It stars people who are well into the sixties.”
“Yeah. That fight at the end had something funny. Those two old men beating each other up. ”
“Oddly enough, I found that struggle quite unsettling. Shocked me more than fights from action movies. Maybe because I had not expect it.”
“And bloody to.”
“So.. no scantily clad ladies waving swords about.. did you like it?”
“It was okay. The story has an interesting angle. Actually you know what the bad guys are doing and how, but you don’t know why. And you follow Lieberman, Olivier that is, trying to figure it out. I bet a lot of people figured it out halfway through..I didn’t. Although it wasn’t much of a surprise in the end..”
“Only an very implausible plot. It is impossible to recreate the same conditions that shaped the people in the early twenty century, in the second half. The world was just completely different. Just to name a few important changes: you got cars, airplanes and television. This alone changed the world. Totally impossible.”
“Yeah, but fun.Besides, maybe they thought: let’s give it a try.”
“If you are a fanatic you do not even to think that. You just do it..”
“Right. And Nazis are fanatics… just look at Raiders of the Lost Ark…”
“Yes.. or you can be a scientist obsessed with a project.”
“Like Mengele.”
“A fanatic and a scientist.. a dangerous combination. They can make the world go boom just because they want to.”
“And it is fun just seeing them old actors act. Peck seems very there in every scene he is in. And his boisterous overbearing personality contrasts with the down on his luck old Olivier. Yet these nazis can not touch the vulnerable Olivier because then other people will get on to them. Publicity has its advantage,” Krisl said.
Henry nodded.
“It is a nice movie.. based on a story of Ira Levin. Yet again.”
“And there was this German guy in it.”
“You noticed?”
“Yeah.. that guy from that German movie we once saw. Der himmel uber Berlin.. and the one that played Hitler in Downfall.”
“Bruno Ganz.”
“Ah, that is his name?”
“Yes.”
“Another movie about Nazis and that Hitler guy.”
“It is an infinite source for stories,” Kristl nodded.
“Yeah.. he sure casts a long shadow over Germany.”
“It is a sad thing… It sure is.” Kristl sighed.
“We call that..FUBAR!” Henry said.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077269/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99894.The_Boys_from_Brazil
