The Man with the Iron Heart (HHhH)
24/06/17 Filed in: Cinema
I mentioned in the last review that we had been in Lille, France. It was very hot while we were there, and on the Sunday afternoon, with the town being very quiet and the temperature soaring, we decided to spend a couple of hours in the air conditioned cinema. The choice of English language films was limited, and we decided to go for HHhH, which is the French title of this French made film. It is a film about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, HHhH being an acronym for Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich (Himmler's brain is called Heydrich), a quip about Heydrich said to have circulated in Nazi Germany at the time. Cetainly Heydrich is portrayed as being the brain behind the 'Final Solution', although my research suggests that this was a programme that evolved rather than being promoted exclusively by Heydrich. He was, however, a very unsavoury character, regarded by many historians as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite.
This is not an easy film, depicting as it does acts of extreme violence against the Czech people during the German occupation in 1942. Reinhard Heydrich, a disgraced naval officer who rejected his existing lover when he met Lina von Osten, a member of the Nazi Party and daughter of a German aristocrat, played very convincingly in the film by Rosamund Pike. Lina persuaded Heydrich to look into joining Himmler's counter intelligence division and he was subsequently appointed by Himmler as director of the Reich Main Security Office, and later Adolf Hitler appointed him Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
This film tells effectively two stories, one being the life of Heydrich and the other of the Czech and Slovak soldiers, Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík, who were trained by the British Special Operations Executive to assassinate Heydrich. Heydrich is portrayed as evil, a not unfair depiction according to historians. He is also shown as being less than loving to his wife, at one point telling her that if she complains about his trips away one more time, she will cease to be his wife. His treatment of Resistance fighters is brutal, most opting to take a poison capsule rather than be captured alive. In one harrowing scene towards the end of the film, a young boy is made to witness his father being tortured as a way of getting him to talk. Quite upsetting.
The story of the two allied soldiers is far more uplifting. They have been friends since meeting in the back of an open truck after hitching a lift. They each find romance in the build up to the assassination attempt, but the local Resistance members are fearful of the repercussions of the assassination, justifiably so as it turns out. They nevertheless agree to support the pair, although as we subsequently find out, not to a man. The assassination attempt itself isn't without problems and is portrayed exactly as described by historical accounts. As expected there is a massive clampdown by the German troops afterwards, with many Resistance fighters pursued and even more innocent people caught up in the retribution.
The final sequence in a Prague church also closely adheres to historical fact, where the Resistance members were surrounded after one of their members betrayed them. If the traitor thought this would lessen reprisals, he was wrong. The assassination was falsely linked to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky, where all males over 16 were murdered, as were all the women in Ležáky. Both towns were burned and Lidice was levelled. At least 1,300 people were massacred with the surviving women sent to a concentration camp. These events are also accurately described in the film.
This film shows no holds barred the horrors of the Nazi regime and the bravery of those who sought to retaliate. From what I have read, it attempts to tell the story accurately, the film itself being based on the book HHhH by Laurent Binet.
Note that at the time of writing this film hadn't been released in the UK.
The final sequence in a Prague church also closely adheres to historical fact, where the Resistance members were surrounded after one of their members betrayed them. If the traitor thought this would lessen reprisals, he was wrong. The assassination was falsely linked to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky, where all males over 16 were murdered, as were all the women in Ležáky. Both towns were burned and Lidice was levelled. At least 1,300 people were massacred with the surviving women sent to a concentration camp. These events are also accurately described in the film.
This film shows no holds barred the horrors of the Nazi regime and the bravery of those who sought to retaliate. From what I have read, it attempts to tell the story accurately, the film itself being based on the book HHhH by Laurent Binet.
Note that at the time of writing this film hadn't been released in the UK.