Bonhoeffer - Film Review

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Bonhoeffer is directed by Todd Komarnicki and stars Jonas Dassler as Bonhoeffer, and Phileas Heyblom as the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Moritz Bleibtreu and Nadine Heidenreich as the parents, Clarke Peters as Reverend Powell Snr, August Diehl as the Bishop, and David Jonsson as Bonhoeffer's friend in Harlem. Rated PG and 132 minutes long, it is based on a true story. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, born 4 February 1906, was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church .

In 1933, when Hitler attained power in Germany, the first thing he took over was the German church. He used his brute nationalism to sway the Lutheran and Catholic leadership to his way of seeing the world. Within months, Bibles and crosses disappeared from sanctuaries, replaced by copies of Mein Kampf and the ever-present swastika. One man inside the church decided that political courage was an act of faith, and to stand silent in the face of evil, was in fact, evil itself. Bonhoeffer is the story of that man. A son of privilege, who traded his very life to fight against Hitler and to stand in the breach to protect the lives of innocent Jews. As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is swept into the epicentre of a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler. With his faith and fate at stake, Bonhoeffer must choose between upholding his moral convictions or risking it all to save millions of Jews from genocide. Bonhoeffer's books, many of them written in prison, have sold countless millions over the decades. A hero whose statue stands outside Westminster Abbey next to MLK, Jr.’s. A human being who decided that his life was worth trading if it meant another man could go free.


Bonhoeffer begins on a high; a wonderfully warm family environment, a beautiful home, lovely parents, close siblings, a touch of mischief, a child's belief in magic, and an obviously speedy and athletic, golden child you felt was someone special, loved by his family, and a big brother he adored. This is a story that goes back and forth in time, and when it returns to present time - it's not always in chronological order, though not difficult to follow when you've viewed it in its whole and entirety. A religious book by his side, given to him by his brother with the good parts underlined - Dietrich is never without a book he writes and makes notes in, not just in prison but all the time. The headline he writes in the books are at times an indication of the scene and the timeframe that follows - his time in the US. While studying religion in America, he is introduced to the African-American community, jazz, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and racism.

It is this gross unfairness upon Black America that opens his eyes to recognising what's happening in his own country, and changes the way he sees religion. The film stretches these facts and sees Bonhoeffer leading his own jazz combo in a Harlem nightclub - being physically abused in a confrontation with a racist and becoming an impassioned advocate for the rights of African-Americans. The film is strongest in the first half, depicting the charismatic Bonhoeffer as a crusader developing an appetite for justice. However, it fails the second half as it struggles to portray the sprawling life of this celebrated figure, in its short timeframe, and doesn't fully capture the fullness of its title - the Pastor, Spy, Assassin.


Returning to his homeland, Bonhoeffer has lost his grip on what's happening at home while he's been away. Disbelief soon disappears as Nazism slowly starts to creep into every facet of German life. This is when the pace picks up to try and fill in the rest, ending up with a thin trail on what should have been given importance. Bonhoeffer feigning to pay allegiance to Hitler runs on thin ice, as it's not bolstered with a solid backup. The assassination plot that put Bonhoeffer in jail, which should have been cinematically exciting is but a whimper. The scheming is given short shift, and Komarnicki chooses to depict a different bomb plot than the one Bonhoeffer was charged with participating in, in recreating that sequence of events. That adds to the historical pollution of the film. History speaks of Bonhoeffer saving many lives, but all you see is one moment, and a handful of men that were saved, which is not as impactful as it could have been. This is no Schindler's List. The film also fails to be the thriller it could have been, and as a biopic, it's not necessarily representative of the spirit of the man. It in fact becomes very preachy and a little boring at times, with a tendency towards sermons, instead of conversations. However, the film is still solid enough to find an audience and hold interest as long as you're not too critical and happy to go with the flow, but you can't help but think how much better it could have been. What was striking, gut-wrenching, and the most impactful for me in the end, was that it was a mere couple of weeks to a new life, when a man's fate could have been changed, but wasn't.




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