The film opens with a caption reading ‘Inspired by historical events’ which lets you know it didn’t happen in the manner depicted. That’s OK, as it’s not billed as a documentary and to get in a lot of the story the writer wanted to tell you have to suspend disbelief somewhat and forgive the many unlikely coincidences.
A voice-over at the start tells us of ‘The Rhineland Bastards’ children born to Arian German women to black husbands, These bi-racial kids are an embarrassment to Hitler’s plans for genetic purity and he makes life as hard as possible for them.
One such child is Leyna, whose father was a Senegalese fighting for the French. He’s no longer on the scene and Leyna lives with her mother and white younger brother. Virtually everyone is horrible to Leyna apart from the baker who later gets shot in the crotch for his troubles. Leyna gets booted out of her school and sent to work in the factory, along side her mother.
She meets a Hitler Youth, Lutz, who is the only nice Nazi we meet. Lutz’ dad, The Ninth Doctor, is trying to sit out the war despite being a high ranking Nazi. He encourages his son to do the same but the boy is keen to fight. This doesn’t marry well with his racial tolerance and frankly his ideals are all over the shop.
After an hour of abuse Leyna’s mother gets taken to the camps and Leyna follows soon after. At the camp Leyna discovers she’s pregnant to Lutz, but as luck would have it Lutz is posted to the very same camp. As the war nears its end, Leyna’s pregnancy begins to show. Can Lutz protect her and who will protect him?
This was a good effort on a worthy subject, and it’s hard to criticise such brave intentions. But here goes. I felt the film relied a lot on coincidence. Everybody appeared where they needed to be and even after a slightly shocking ending, emboldened by some radical character shifts, another unlikely reunion in the smallest camp you’ll ever see, just made it seem less real and for crowd pleasing effect only.
The Germans were broadly drawn with Leyna getting abused every time she walked down the street. With the war at its peak it seemed strange that random soldiers were allowed to stand outside the factories just grabbing random workers - don’t you want these shells made? Abbie Cornish was great as the Mum and nailed the accent. Amandla Stenberg was less convincing in the main role of Leyna and I never felt the principals were believable as a family.
The Ninth Doctor was all over the place as the nice Nazi who goes mental at the end. Probably his Lancashire accent that did for him. The locations and costumes were good as was the concentration camp set. Not in the ‘Schindler’s List’ ball park but still believable and garnished by some pretty brutal murders.
Tonally it was a bit of a mess with characters professing love and then being right shits - even the saintly Leyna, who grasses up an escapee two minutes before being caught herself. Desperate measures for desperate times or just a nasty bit of work?
It was a quick two hours and I enjoyed it for the most part. The suspension of disbelief was a necessity as was the acceptance of some scene chewing acting, but overall this was an informative and powerful film that delivered a war time message that still resonates today.
Best Bit : Look at my Jazz mags 'W' Rating 16/23
