Two Polish films have been named among ‘the best anti-fascist films of all-time’ by the influential entertainment magazine Hollywood Reporter in response to Elon Musk’s “Hitler-like salute” at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Issuing their shortlist as a reminder of “the dangers of unchecked power,” the online magazine wrote: “In light of recent events, it might be a good time to remember a very simple truth: Nazis are ALWAYS the bad guys.”
They added: “There’s no better moment to revisit cinema’s most compelling examinations of authoritarianism, resistance and the human cost of tyranny.
“This list brings together films from across the globe, spanning decades and genres, that remind us of the dangers of unchecked power.”
Making up Poland’s contribution, the rollcall includes the 1990 masterpiece Europa, Europa.
“There are plenty of movies about those who resist authoritarian power,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter. “Rarer are stories of those forced to adapt to a totalitarian system in order to survive.
“In her incredible—and incredibly true—tale, Agnieszka Holland follows Solomon Perel, born the fourth child of a Jewish family in Germany who immigrated to Poland in the 1930s in a failed attempt to escape Nazi persecution.”
While his family were nearly completely wiped out in the Holocaust, Perel survived in an orphanage in Soviet-occupied Grodno, and then later by becoming “a model member of the Hitler Youth.”
“Perel’s life,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter, “feels like a great cosmic joke, and Holland’s film illustrates the absurdity of underlying fascist ideology.”
Also listed in the website’s 40-strong selection is Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning Ida.
Set in 1960s Poland, the film tells the story of one woman about to take her vows before becoming a nun. However, after meeting her only living relative, she finds out that she is in fact Jewish and embarks on a road trip to trace her past alongside her aunt, a notorious communist judge.
“Shot in stunning black-and-white, Ida explores how forgetting or misremembering the past can lead to the repetition of cycles of state violence, but it offers no easy answers for how a country, once it goes down the fascist route, can ever make itself whole again,” the Hollywood Reporter wrote.
Notable for its depth and diversity, the list also includes such films as the Empire Strikes Back, Charlie Chaplin’s satire The Great Dictator, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and the Bogart / Bergman classic Casablanca.
The list also contains two films set in modern-day Poland. Following the mundane daily life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, The Zone of Interest is hailed for its portrayal of “domestic normality” that plays out “directly adjacent to industrial murder.”
Also lauded is The Tin Drum, a 1979 film based on the Günter Grass book of the same title. Set in Danzig (today Gdańsk), it tells the story of Oskar, a boy that stops his own physical development and, writes the Hollywood Reporter, “uses his childlike POV to mock the pomp and pomposity of Nazism.”
