You
have to wonder if Nicki Minaj’s Nazi propaganda-inspired video is even legal in
Germany. If not, it might find a place in the vault where archivists store the
National Socialist films considered so incendiary they remain barred from
public screenings and above-board distribution. It is there Felix Moeller
begins Forbidden Films (trailer here), a documentary survey of banned Third Reich cinema which screens
during the 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival.
The
explosive nitrate film stock the wartime filmmakers used makes “explosive”
metaphors too easy. Given its inherent instability, the storage unit was deliberately
constructed facing a large land berm to absorb the shock, should it ever
ignite. Recalling the vibe of Into Eternity, documentarian Michael Madsen’s excursion to the underground
nuclear by-product holding facility Onkalo, these are arguably the best scenes
of Forbidden. Unfortunately, they are
soon dispensed with.
Most
of the documentary consists of brief analysis of banned films representative of
particular propaganda categories and a subjective determination of their
lasting potency, often involving rare public screenings, under strictly controlled
circumstances. The result is a strange mishmash that almost approaches a hate
propaganda installment of the That’s
Entertainment franchise.
Moeller
breaks samples of the forty remaining prohibited films down into broad themes,
such as the gloriousness of war, the supposed villainy of Poles, and the
dehumanization of Jews. Granted, just about everyone who sees Veit Harlan’s Jew Süss (the subject of Moeller’s
better, previous doc) is disturbed by
its naked anti-Semitism and the uncomfortable effectiveness of its dramatic
manipulations. However, Moeller is clearly conflicted how to handle audience
attempts to defend Wolfgang Liebeneiner’s I
Accuse, an ardent euthanasia advocacy film that especially pleased Goebbels
precisely because it normalizes the killing of the weak. These viewers cry out
to be challenged, but Moeller just punts it away to the next thematic section.
Moeller
might think he is plumbing the depths of the German soul, but Forbidden is really rather shallow. For
all its purported concern over neo-Nazi groups it never examines the
precipitous rise in anti-Semitism in Europe, in part driven by immigration from
the Islamic world, or questions how these films might play to non-European
audiences. Nor does it get into the deeper wonky details on the Denazification
of most of the twelve hundred some films made during the National Socialist
era, some of which were musicals and romantic comedies that merely required a
swastika to be edited out here and there.
