Fatherland (1994 film)

Fatherland was a 1994 TV film of the book of the same name by Robert Harris made by HBO, starring Rutger Hauer as March and Miranda Richardson as Maguire.

Plot

In the prologue, the failure of the D-Day invasion forces the United States to withdraw from the war in Europe and for Dwight Eisenhower to retire in disgrace. The US still continues the Pacific war against Japan and wins. In Europe, Winston Churchill is exiled to Canada and dies in 1953; Edward VIII returns to the throne. Germany, which has corralled all European countries into a single state named "Germania," fights on against the USSR well into the 1960s. The 1960 election of US President Joseph Kennedy gives the Nazi leadership a chance to secure a better understanding with Washington in light of its clandestine support of the Soviets. As Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday on April 20, 1964 looms and President Kennedy is coming over for a summit meeting, Germania opens its borders to US media. However, some questions emerge about the supposed Jewish ‘resettlement’ in the east during the war.

A body is found floating in a lake near Berlin. SS Major Xavier March starts investigating the body and the witness who saw it being dumped. The dead person is revealed to be Josef Buehler, a retired Nazi Party official who managed the resettlement. However, the Gestapo takes over the case for "state security" reasons; the witness' death in a gymnastics accident is implied to be carried out by the Gestapo.

Meanwhile, Charlie McGuire, a member of a visiting US press entourage, runs into an old man who slips her an envelope. A picture in the envelope leads her to Wilhelm Stuckhart, but she finds him dead at his apartment. March is assigned to the Stuckhart case, but when he takes McGuire to where she found the body, the Gestapo shows up, and March is again taken off the case. Following up on the photo, McGuire and March visit Wannsee to learn the names of those who attended the Wannsee Conference and discover they’re all dead except for Franz Luther - the man who gave her the original picture. March tells McGuire to get out, as he now realizes this is a plot at the very highest levels. Luther sits beside McGuire inside a train and asks for safe passage to the US so he can reveal what he knows about the resettlement. SS troops corner Luther at Humboldthain station and kill him, while Xavier later blackmails a colleague to get Luther’s file.

Posing as a US Embassy official sent to process Luther's safe passage, McGuire visits his mistress, former stage actress Anna von Hagen, and gets all of his papers, but not before learning from Von Hagen that the Jews were killed. March, who is shocked at seeing the files, plans to join McGuire in escaping Germania with his son. Seeing Gestapo chief General Globus appear with his men, March kills one operative and flees, stopping at a nearby phone booth to call his son one more time before he dies from his wounds. As Kennedy arrives at the Great Hall, a member of the press entourage helps McGuire slip the documents to the president via the US ambassador. Kennedy ponders the materials before deciding to fly back to the US immediately.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that the narrator is actually March's now-grown son. He says McGuire was eventually arrested by the Gestapo. The revelation of the mass slaughter of the Jews derails any prospect of a strategic alliance with the USA, resulting in the Nazi regime's collapse.

Cast

• Rutger Hauer as Xavier March
• Miranda Richardson as Charlie Maguire
• Peter Vaughn as Artur Nebe
• Jean Marsh as Anna von Hagen
• Michael Kitchen as Jaeger
• John Woodvine as Franz Luther
• John Shrapnel as General Globus aka Odilo Globocnik
• Clive Russell as Krebs
• Clare Higgins as Klara

Critical reception

The movie received modest reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 50% from seven reviews.^[1]

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly graded the movie at B+. He states that the book's plot was faithfully reproduced and helped pull good performances from Hauer and Richardson. He also took note of Menaul's directing by adding small details such as advertisements on the Beatles' shows. However, Tucker said the predictability of the revelation detracted from the film.^[2]

Awards

Miranda Richardson received a Golden Globe Award in 1995 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV for her performance. Rutger Hauer's performance was also nominated, as well as the film itself. The film also received an Emmy nomination in 1995 for Special Visual Effects.

Feature adaptation

German movie company UFA announced plans to make a feature-film version of the novel in January 2009.^[3] In March 2012, the company revealed that Dennis Gansel and Matthias Pachte have teamed up to write the screenplay, with Gansel as a candidate for director,^[4] but no news have been released as late as June 2013.

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fatherland (film)

• Fatherland at the Internet Movie Database