{"id":433,"date":"2020-07-06T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.working-man.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2020-07-04T06:31:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T12:31:39","slug":"mini-miniseries-review-charite-at-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/06\/mini-miniseries-review-charite-at-war\/","title":{"rendered":"(Mini) Miniseries review: “Charite at War”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reposted from my original post on Facebook in 2019:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was floored by this hidden gem I found on Netflix: “Charite at War”, a German language (with English subtitles) mini-series about a hospital operating in Berlin in the last two years of WWII. I highly recommend it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First off, I knew none of the actors, so they played their characters, not themselves. They were convincing as historical persons facing the terrible hardships of war and I loved a good handful of them before the end. A feature of the film that I enjoyed is that historical footage of public scenes in 1940s Berlin (I presume) is used at appropriate times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the characters were as (or nearly as) complicated and mixed as reality. I ended up loving a character I was initially convinced was a selfish villaness. When I think I recognize stock characters and then realize they are admirable in spite of being petty at times, I am humbled and impressed with the integrity of the art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, the central drama surrounds the “mercy” killing of the disabled, a subject very near to my heart as I have two sons with a form of muscular dystrophy. (Additionally, I have a personality type that was intermittently targeted for elimination by the Nazis as harmfully “anti-social”.) Convenient agreement with Nazi ideas which is then challenged and overcome by love, compromise and collusion with anti-human values, and the lasting consequences of your choices are all weighty aspects of this storyline. I loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One caveat: there is a homosexual affair as a side story. I feel that this was the closest to a nod toward contemporary controversies that was present and it lead to what felt most like a modern story inserted into another era. I grant that it isn’t necessarily unrealistic as there have always been homosexual people. There are some shots of men kissing in several episodes. I personally don’t feel the need to approve of everything in what I watch, so I was able to set that aside. Even so, the movie wasn’t at all titillating, but serious minded and worthy of a watch by thoughtful people, in my judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reposted from my original post on Facebook in 2019: I was floored by this hidden gem I found on Netflix: “Charite at War”, a German Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[99,98,96,97],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-and-tv-reviews","tag-bonhoeffer","tag-euthanasia","tag-german","tag-world-war-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/MV5BMTZiNmRmZmMtN2JkMC00ZDlhLWFjZTctZjM5ZDk3OGJmODA2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTMxODk2OTU@._V1_UY1200_CR11306301200_AL_.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.working-man.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}