Prisoner of Paradise Review
by Robin Clifford (robin AT reelingreviews DOT com)December 12th, 2003
"Prisoner of Paradise"
The life of Kurt Gerron, the legendary German-Jewish stage and film star of the 1920's and 30's, is not well known in America. Academy Award winning documentarian Malcolm Clarke and co-director Stuart Sender remedy this lack with their insightful look at the man, once at the top of his field, who lost everything to the Nazis and eventually sunk to the level of directing a film of their propaganda in order to survive the Holocaust in "Prisoner of Paradise."
The docu follows Kurt Gerron's remarkable career as a Cabaret and theater star during the lively bustle of Berlin in the 20's. This city full of music and nightlife is the fertile ground that spawned the artist professional as he rose to the top of his craft in acting and directing. As Gerron's prominence increased so did that of another man of grand ambition - Adolph Hitler. The Jewish Laws handed down by the new German chancellor where Jews are decried by law to be second-class citizen, losing rights and possessions. Gerron, as a result, was ordered off the set of his latest film by Nazi officials and was forced to flee to Paris, leaving all that he owned to the fascists.
Gerron, penniless, searched in vain for theater and film work in France. He ignores the cautionary advice about the Nazis from his colleagues, such as Joseph von Sternberg, Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre, whom Gerron raised funds to send to America. The great actor and filmmaker was forced to move to Amsterdam where he achieved a modicum of his old success - until the Nazis invade Poland, then the rest of Europe, including Holland. Suddenly, the dreaded Laws apply to all of occupied Europe and Gerron is relegated, by his masters, to perform at Amsterdam's Jewish Theater.
Then, in 1942 Hitler's henchmen met at a lakeside conference in Wannsee, Germany and, in 90 minutes, decide the ultimate fate for Europe's Jews - the Final Solution. During the third act of Gerron's latest play, a bemedalled Nazi officer appears, taking inventory of the theater. The next day, when Gerron and company arrive for rehearsal, their theater is in shambles and the officer announces that it is the new Transportation Center for Jews. The actor/director and his colleagues are eventually shipped to the concentration camp at Theresienstatd in
Czechoslovakia.
The camp became the way station to death for the wealthy, celebrity, intellectual and artistic members of Europe's Jewry, those whose disappearance would be most noticed by the rest of the world. The presence of the famous inmates of Theresienstatd leads the Nazis to cook up a sham to convince those outside of the Reich of their good intentions toward the Jews. When the International Red Cross, reacting to the demands by neutral countries, requests inspection of a concentration camp, the Nazis are happy to comply. They dress up the facade of the old city turned prison, planting flowers, dressing up the inmates and showing all is happy and prosperous, leading the Red Cross representative through a carefully choreographed tour of the Theresienstatd camp. The ruse works.
So successful is the lie that the camp wardens hold a contest for a screenplay to show how wonderful life is in the Theresienstatd, with the finished film distributed to the neutral nations. The first attempt at the documentary, by the young woman who wrote the treatment, is terrible, an indictment of the Nazis. She is executed. The camp commandant selects Kurt Gerron to make the documentary, demanding that it show the wonderful treatment of Jews under Nazi "care." He takes on the task of creating a whitewashed depiction of the happy, healthy inmates eating bread and butter and playing music and dancing. But, the filmmaker's desperate effort, in his mind a betrayal of his people, to survive come to naught and, on 28 October 1944, Gerron and his wife were executed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Clarke and Sender chose a unique subject in Kurt Gerron for their Oscar-nominated work. They collect a bevy of still shots of the actor and director, clips from films such as "Blue Angel" with Marlene Dietrich, and many interviews with Gerron's contemporaries, colleagues and surviving family. Although Gerron's own insights to the times are not documented, the viewpoints of others helps build a look at a man of talent, compassion and kindness. They discuss his humane help, often monetary, to others to escape the Nazi oppression while he repeatedly fails to heed the same warnings - to fatal ends.
The documakers gathered previously unseen footage of the period and weave together the story of Gerron's life and times, his success and Nazi-imposed failure and, ultimately, his death. When he is chosen to direct the mock documentary of the life of the Jews under the Nazis, Gerron sought the advice of the camps Jewish council of elders who recommended that he "do whatever it takes to survive." Even with this support from his own people, Gerron still agonized over his possible betrayal of his fellows. The finished film never saw the light of day outside of Nazi Germany.
"Prisoner of Paradise" is a different look at the victims of the Holocaust through the story of a talented, popular actor and director who died at the hands of his Nazi captors because of the sole fact that he was a Jew. I give it a B.
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