Lore

An exploration of a patriotic German's understanding of the holocaust, Lore is an adaptation of one of the short stories in Rachel Seiffert's The Dark Room. Boasting one of the performances of the year in Saskia Rosendahl, what you get here is engrossing stuff.

SS Officer (Wagner) has returned home in the middle of the night and rouses his kids, including fourteen-year-old Lore (Rosendahl) from their beds. The kids are packed off to a cottage, documents are burned and even the dog is shot - nothing is left for the approaching Allies. When dad turns himself in and mum (Lardi) succumbs to depression, it's left to Lore to care for her four younger siblings. Making their way across the war-torn countryside, they are helped by Jewish Buchenwald survivor (Malina) and must put aside their hatred and distrust to survive the perilous journey to their grandmother's.

Lore isn't just an exploration of a country facing up to its past, but a warning to any country who sells its children an ideology based on hate and fear. This is so strong that at times it almost overpowers the story. As they trudge across country, the young siblings happen across a number of I Am David/The Road groups of civilians, some half-mad with starvation and some defiantly loyal to der fuhrer. Some question the validity of the pictures of the holocaust. Lore herself is convinced the 'final victory' is imminent despite the increasing evidence to the contrary and she and her sister Liesel (Nele Trebs) seem unaware that the cinders floating prettily on the breeze are from a nearby camp.

As Lore witnesses more and more, Aussie director Cate Shortland inserts shots of morning mist rolling away from picturesque hills, like a fog lifting from Lore's eyes so that she can finally see the truth of Nazism. With all this going on, Shortland manages to sneak in Lore's sexual awakening as she's both repulsed by and attracted to the older Malina, and there's a hint that Allied soldiers raped their way across a conquered Germany.

There's a lot going on here and most of it is tough going.