There was a time when saying that Nazis are bad wouldn’t
have been met with so much resistance. There was a time when seeing Captain
America punch Hitler in the face wouldn’t have drawn accusations on the artists
being SJWs. There was a time when recognising that the Nazis are responsible
for some of the greatest atrocities in human history was the least
controversial statement a person could make. But it seems that, in an age where
white supremacy is a hot-button issue, that time is not now. Many people aren’t
exactly happy with this idea, myself included, and that is why this film is
such a delightfully demented breath of fresh air.
Then there’s the visuals courtesy of Aussie director Julian
Avery and cinematographers Laurie Rose and Fabian Wagner, who wear the film’s
vintage setting on their sleeves right from the opening credits. It carries all
the muted grunginess of classic war cinema, accompanied by Jed Kurzel’s
heart-racing score, which definitely pops next to the outrageous levels of gore
on display.
This is a rare occasion of a film actually getting an R18+
rating over here in Australia, and my word, does it look like it. The levels of
sheer body horror we’re shown as a result of the Nazis’ scientific experiments
range from wince-inducing to gloriously over-the-top and everything in-between.
It’d be mighty difficult to make Nazi zombie super-soldiers into something
boring, but this certainly puts the effort in to deliver on some old-school
exploitation thrills.
The aesthetic as a result of all of this feels like it’s
drawing from the Third Reich’s place as one of fiction’s greatest sources for
raw villainy, as embodied by Pilou Asbæk as everything fucking vile in the
world: A murderer, a conqueror and a rapist, and it’s all too easy to question
which order those events take place in where he’s involved. Watching him chew
through scenery and get into amazingly-captured throwdowns with our heroes
feels reminiscent of the golden days of Captain America, not to mention media
like Wolfenstein.
It’s like an attempt to bring back the good ol’ days of war
propaganda, where the Nazis weren’t just evil but capable of bending the rules
of nature and science in the process like comic book villains. This is what
Frank Miller’s Holy Terror should
have looked like: Golden Age sensibilities with a Dark Age penchant for all
things violent.
But the strangest part about all this? There’s even a deeper
point to all of this, beneath the thick layers of viscera. In times of war, or
opposing factions who very well could start a war with their antics, there’s a
recurring notion that it takes a monster to stop a monster. In order to defeat
the enemy, one may be forced to use their own methods against them. It’s a
conceit often used to balance out the brutality frequently shown in war cinema,
but here, it gets turned somewhat on its head through the eyes of Private
Boyce.
A soldier torn from his home by conscription, only
comprehending just how dire the situation is once he discovers what the Nazis
are really up to in raising their
Thousand-Year Army, he is forced to face the eventual result of that mentality.
Reducing one’s self to the level of the enemy doesn’t solve the problem; it
just creates more of them, and there are some things that no-one should be capable
of, let alone try to justify because others are doing the same. It’s the kind
of message that is genuinely surprising, considering the film it’s packaged in,
but it’s something that could be useful in adhering to. There’s enough monsters
in the world; let’s try not to make more of them.
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