Max
(2002)
review by Head Cheeze

How does one approach a subject like Adolf Hitler, arguably the most vile and hated human being to have ever walked the Earth? It's a subject that filmmakers have touched upon for years, but have never really gotten close to. We've seen films about the Nazi party, films about Hitler's girlfriends or confidants, and, of course, dozens about his regime's effects, but there have been precious few to have the courage (or hubris!) to truly show Hitler for what he truly was.

A man.

As much as we hate to admit it, Hitler was one of us. It's far more pallatable to think of him as some sort supernatural agent of evil rather than the disturbed and disenchanted veteran of a lopsided war who returned to life in Germany and saw those he viewed as "foreigners" prosper while the "true Germans" starved in the streets. It's even more difficult to fathom that Adolf Hitler was actually a fairly benign personality who was recruited by the national socialist party as a speaker (they offered the starving thirty year old the only job he could find in the economic shambles of post war Germany), even though his true desire was to be an artist. I've studied Adolf Hitler in great detail (and before anyone accuses me of anything more than historical curiousity, I've also spent equal time studying serial killers, religeous zealots, and the more unsavory Emperors of Rome. It's a hobby.) and, while what I've read about the man hasn't swayed my opinion of him, it has given me a level of understanding as to how and why he became the monster the world (justifiably) remembers him as.

While books and documentaries have always been fairly open-minded to the fact that Adolf Hitler was simply flesh and blood, cinema has always painted him as a caricature of evil that audiences could root against. While this is understandable, it's also a tremendous disservice to us as viewers for we've been denied the one thing that makes Adolf Hitler so terrifying, and that is the fact that he was a human being through and through. It's tough to digest that fact in light of what he'd done, but better we accept this and look for ways to prevent it from happening again than simply write Hitler off as a once-in-a-millenium anomaly. For one to truly understand the inner-workings of a madman, one must look beyond their actions toward their origins for the more complete picture.

Max, the debut film for director Menno Meyjes, attempts to do just that. The film centers around a Jewish art dealer named Max Rothman (Cusack), a veteran of World War One who lost his arm and, by proxy, his career as a painter. Rothman has a chance meeting with another veteran whose war paintings strike a nerve with the dealer, and Max decides to take this young soldier, Corporal Adolf Hitler (Taylor), under his wing. Just as Hitler begins to develop as an artist, he's also persuaded by his fellow army mates to become a spokesmen for a new Nationalist party (something he doesn't want to do, but they offer to cover his expenses, and he needs the money for his art). As Hitler and Rothman's relationship becomes strained by Hitler's new "job", Rothman offers the artist the opportunity to leave politics behind.

Max is a revelation. It's truly the first film to take the chance of humanizing history's most reviled character, and it does so in such a way that it's likely that this film will infuriate a lot of people. To me, however, Max makes Hitler an even more terrifying persona by giving us an historically accurate back story and revealing him to be a conflicted and disturbed young man. Noah Taylor jumps into the role of Hitler with a fearlessness and ferocity that is nothing short of astonishing. We see him as a vulnerable and insecure artist whose traditional stylings pale in comparison with the more radical movements of his era, and, as he begins to realise that his calling may be in the art of politics, we see how this insecurity grows into resentment. Once his dreams are shattered, all Hitler has left is this resentment.

Max makes no excuses for Hitler's actions later in life, it simply tries to lay out the reasons for them. One doesn't watch this film and say "Ahh! So NOW I understand why he resorted to genocide", instead, the viewer is given a glimpse into one of the several catalysts that led him there.

What keeps Max from being a five skull masterpiece is the fact that even though the film breaks virtually every rule of cinema by humanizing someone most people would rather think hatched from a different egg, the film spends more time focusing on Rothman's other relationships than the rather deep and profound one he'd developed with Hitler. However, I give the filmmakers credit for taking the chances they did with this film, even if they did play it somewhat close to the vest.

The DVD from Lion's Gate Films features a commentary track by director Meyjes, as well as several interviews with the film's principals. My only gripe about the interviews is that they are broken down into extremely short segments, with no option to play them as a whole. This results in a lot of waiting for the menu screen to reload only to click a topic only to hear a sentence or two before the speaker is abruptly cut off and you're back to the menu screen. It's frustrating to say the least, and it would have been nice to sit back and absorb the full interviews.

Max is a fascinating look at what was and what could have been. It's a film that's bound to polarize audiences with it's approach, but that's what good cinema is all about.