The Decent One, an intimate documentary which delves into the private letters and diaries of SS head Heinrich Himmler, is an eye-opening portrait of a monstrous man who was responsible for many of World War II's horrors. The film's director, Vanessa Lapa, took the time to answer some questions about the film's perspective, reception, and construction.
World War II is perhaps the most cinematically represented event in
history, in both narrative and documentary film. What made you want to
explore it further with The Decent One?
In my case it was a bit different.
The story came to me.
I was approached by a friend, who is a Professor at the University
of Tel-Aviv, who had heard about the collection. He suggested that we go and
see the collection together as he thought I may find interest in it as a
Filmmaker.
The big challenge was to tackle and tell the story from the POV of
the perpetrator, the German POV.
What was it about Himmler’s letters and diaries that grabbed your
attention? Did anything contained within the collection particularly
surprise you?
What especially caught my attention was that these were written
without the aim to be published.
The natural attraction to extreme characteristics, in this case Evil,
accessing it and understanding it a bit more, or more accurately to try to
understand a little more.
Unlike the Goebbels diaries, which were written in order to be
published, this is the first High Ranking Nazi ever we have “direct” access to.
What surprised me over and over again, although after a while I knew
the character so well and could predict how the letter will end, is the way he
pervert it all again and again, the way he will give the twist even in a letter
that is a loving one. E.g: he writes his wife-to-be just before they are
getting married that he loves her so much, she is the most important person for
him BUT there is something he loves a bit more: the Nation.
Every time we were widening the research and would bump into public
historical fact, which matched the content of a letter, a picture, a diary
entry…it felt so real, it is so real.
Because the words are his and his loved ones’, The Decent
One almost plays like a curated autobiography. Was it your hope
to let Himmler “speak for himself” with this documentary?
My hope was for him to speak for himself
from the moment the whole collection was translated and I realized the richness
of the content, the amount of stories and texts we have. I realized up to what
extent I will be able to remain true to the text, to the words.
Speaking for himself ONLY in order to
reinforce the narrative, message and cinematic experience.
What more authentic and real way to have a
character reveals himself than in his own words? Without any external
interference, we can witness today what a perverted, twisted mass murderer he
was.
Using Himmler’s words only is the most
difficult approach to take, as this brings the viewer close to a hated and
horrible character. I thought it is important to reveal and understand hate
from this man’s intimacy.
The point is not to simply hear what he
did but trying to place ourselves in his perspective. If we can get over the
discomfort of seeing and hearing a person we hate, than one could learn something
else about the War and what happened. We may all then be one step further in
our ability to make sure that this will never happen again.
It would have been much easier to make a
film with emotional background music, narration and talking heads.
It was of prime importance to stick to his
words, to present him and his family and subordinates with their own words. To
remain faithful to their relationships. To seek their emotional truth.
All the themes I wanted to explore were
there, written in his texts.
How did you come to construct the film? There’s an amazing
amount of material to work with, both from Himmler’s documentaries and in terms
of stock footage.
First of all, by sticking to the text very
rigorously.
Practically, we first transcribed the
content of the collection into modern German and than translated it into
English and Hebrew.
The material was immensely rich and I
realized we could build a story from the texts only. This gave me, on an
artistic level, the opportunity to grant the audience with a cinematic
experience, and on a historic level to grant the audience a journey and insight
into the mind of one of the biggest mass murderers in History.
After that, we started to write the
script. What guided us is to try and tell the story to culminate in a good story-telling
way. With a beginning, a middle and an end. With a constant development and
tension in order to keep the viewer interested. To have one scene feed the next
one and so on….
Once we had the story (script), we started
the visual research. As we had a narrative from the POV of Himmler and his
family we could not use propaganda footage: this would neither reflect nor
contradict the text, this was not fitting the concept, the artistic choice.
We went to all the places, cities, towns,
countries Himmler visited and tried to get footage, mainly home videos, which
would reflect what he saw and did. In the big archives we searched for the
footage that is not the usual propaganda footage and for the footage that was
not published because of not fitting the Nazi propaganda machine. We approached
the children and grandchildren of other High Ranking Nazis who had the same
experiences as Himmler.
It was a constant dialogue between the
text and the images. We adapted the images to the text and when we found images
that were important, we adapted the text to the image.
We started to build the “sound world” in a
very early stage and went along with the same concept. Remaining faithful to
the text and the image. Allowing the viewer to be part of Himmler’s journey,
not to watch it from the side. To “feel” and be “part of”, and not only to
“consume” the film.
Historians accompanied us in order to
reflect the reality. Every sound has been recorded live. When you see the Dixie
car, we went to record the sound of the closing of the door of an original
Dixie car from the early 1930’s.
Of course we still have an amount of
footage and text that could serve us for at least 20 other films. The best of what
we were able to find, is in the Film.
Based on the film’s title, I expected there to be some glimmer of
compassion or goodness in The Decent One’s portrait of Himmler, but
I found his humanity utterly stained by monstrosity. Does anything in his
letters make him more man, less monster to you?
I totally agree with you. I found the same
as you and this is what makes all of it so frightening. We are witnessing perversion
at its widest extent practiced by a Human Being.
He was not a Monster but a Man, a Human
Being.
A Monstrous Man. Everything in his letters
underlines and reinforces how much he was a man and not a monster who made
conscience choices.
The Decent One is Der Anstaendige in
German. The word Decency is one he uses over 1000 times in his life. It is
pronounced by him 13 times in the film. This was the virtue he believed in the
most. One had to kill in a decent way. He educated and praised decency all
along.
All that is decent in his mind is in our
minds the total opposite of decency.
To me it says in one word the whole perversion
of this man, how twisted he was. The absurdity of him being the Decent One is
one of the messages of the Film.
As a gay man, I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Himmler’s
homophobic rants and supremely homoerotic footage of German training. Do
you think there was some sort of repression at work in the German ideal of a
perfect male body?
Thanks for the compliment. It is a scene
which we though about a lot.
Which visual image would best match the
deep and wide sense of his Homosexual speech?
Those are Aryan soldiers of the SS
exercising. Isn’t it exactly how Himmler and all are perceiving gay men? With
perfect bodies? So here we witness
that the ones with the perfect bodies are the Aryans he is training and not the
gays he is sending to Concentration Camps and exterminating.
I above all think that there was an idealization
of a Myth, of Myths. I believe that the danger of considering myths as if they
were real can bring to the collapse of a whole culture.
As far as my understanding goes we are all
the product of an education, of different kind of repressions, all our actions
could find an explanation if one goes way back and tries to find the roots of
any behavior. As they were Humans and not Monsters or animals, this goes for
them as well. This can in NO way be an acceptable
answer/explanation for any of the conclusions they came to and criminal acts
they did!
I do agree with you that they had a huge
“issue” with Homosexuality. The contrast - between the image of the perfect
bodies they seek for and what they did with those who, mythically and
dogmatically are classified by society as those with the perfect bodies - is
raising a lot of questions.
What did the film’s success at the Jerusalem Film Festival mean to
you?
It moved me a lot. I felt very honored and
was extremely happy for the team who worked with me for so long, the editor,
the sound designer, the restoration team, the production, for them to have their
amazing work, the many hours, efforts and huge amount of
energies recognized by the outside.
It meant also that people may go to see
the Film, something I could only dream of.
A success in your “home territory” is a very,
very special moment.
The Decent One opened is now playing in New York City and opens in Los Angeles this Friday.
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