Book Review: Maus: A Survivor's Tale

I have to confess this - I was not a great fan of comics till my friend Pratheek introduced me to the Manga series “Lone wolf and the cub” last year. But even before I got hooked into this genre of story telling, I had heard about “Maus”. While doing some research on the great works detailing the Nazi concentration camp/extermination camp experience, I was told that this satire was a must read for anyone wanting to understand the sufferings of the survivors of the infamous Auschwitz and its infamous Birkenue extension.

Maus is an attempt by Art Spiegelman to heal himself and his family of the horrific memories of Nazi atrocities. Book one “Maus: A Survivor's Tale - My Father Bleeds History” deals with the story of Vladek Spiegelman’s (Art Spiegelman’s father) life in Poland before the WW2 and the subsequent rise of anti Semitism post Poland’s Nazi invasion. Vladek Spiegelman’s struggles in protecting his family in Radomsko, Częstochowa, Sosnowiec and Bielsko in the late 1930s are chronicled in details and the first book ends where he and his wife is taken as prisoners to the notorious Auschwitz.

In the second book “Maus : A Survivor's Tale -Here My Troubles Began”, Spiegelman’s complex relation with his parents is dealt in detail. His mother Anja Spiegelman survived the concentration camps but later succumbed to her nightmares and committed suicide. His father was far from the resourceful and compassionate Nazi prisoner in his old age and ill treated and his second wife Mala, also a concentration camp survivor.

While discussing about the huge divide that exists in Delhi over communal lines, one of my professors mentioned about collective psyche and how the scars run over generations. Reading Maus and reading about Art Spiegelman’s guilt in having escaped the Nazi pogrom would give us an idea about this concept.

The satire Maus is known for using various anthropomorphic animals, according to nationality or race. Jews, for example, are depicted as human-like mice, Germans as cats, Americans as dogs, and Poles as pigs. The anthropomorphic allegories drawn are powerful. For example - Jews, as mice, as weak and helpless victims, Germans, as cats, suggest power over the Jews and malevolence (cats often play with mice before killing them) or Dogs for the Americans suggest power, friendliness and enmity towards cats! By using such metophors, Spiegelman is ridiculing the Nazi and other extremist world views of grouping people according to their race/nationality/colour etc...

Maus picked up many awards and popularized this genre of story telling. A telling ensemble is Persepolis, a French graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, describing her childhood in Iran after the revolution. (Thanks to Pratheek George Thomas, I can now write a review for that too)


Awards

• 1988 Angoulême International Comics Festival Awards - Religious Award: Christian Testimony & Prize for Best Comic Book: Foreign Comic Award (Maus: un survivant raconte).
• 1988 Urhunden Prize - Foreign Album (Maus).
• 1990 Max & Moritz Prizes - Special Prize (Maus). 1992 Pulitzer Prize - Special Awards and Citations - Letters (Maus).
• 1992 Eisner Award - Best Graphic Album: Reprint (Maus II).
• 1992 Harvey Award - Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work (Maus II).
• 1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (Maus II, A Survivor's Tale).
• 1993 Angoulême International Comics Festival Awards - Prize for Best Comic Book: Foreign comic (Maus: un survivant raconte, part II).
• 1993 Urhunden Prize - Foreign Album (Maus II).

Verdict: 10/10 – A must read!!!

Movie Review: Gandhi my father

“So was it after Kasturba’s death that Abha and Manu moved in with Gandhiji?” - This question from a good friend of mine – a generation Y graphic designer, made stand up and think. We as Indians have a particular habit. We tend to ‘divinize’ or ‘devilize’ leaders. Mahatma is one such historic figure who has been canonized that any reference to him had to be made with reverence. The obvious defect in such an approach is that the future generations tend to become ignorant of them as human beings with all the failings, worship them and in a weird turn of events, tend to trivialize them. No offence mend to any Christians, I distinctly remember discussing sexuality with some friends during my school days and a friend of mine (who is from a devote catholic family) wondered if Jesus Christ was a homosexual!

Back to our main topic, for over a month I waited patiently for “Gandhi my father” to be released and on the day of the release I managed to get a ticket. The private screening for Nelson Mandela and his subsequent praising the crew only piqued my interest in the film. Alas what a disappointment it was…

Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi made “Mahatma” the symbol of moral force to the world and from then on even western directors never attempted to see the human side of him. Hence Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as a father and that too as a failed father and a failed husband was an interesting and ambitious theme for any director to attempt. Feroz Khan tried his best to bring out the tumultuous relation between Gandhi and his elder son Harilal Gandhi but failed to convince the audience totally. Akshay Khanna failed miserably as Harilal Gandhi but going by the raves the TV channels are making, I have no doubts that even with this mediocre performance, he would be nominated for national award! And then, if Saif Ali Khan’s cool dude act in “Hum Tum” and Amitabh Bachan’s hysteria and baritone in “Black” could earn them the national best actor awards, there isn’t any reason why Akshay Khanna be denied the honors for his “lame act”?

"Gandhi my father" would have been a decent documentary, had it not been for the historical inaccuracies. In 1915 Gandhi is shown as exhorting his country men to boycott british goods and textiles while in reality, Gandhi British during the First World War by raising and leading an ambulance corps. It was only in 1920 after he launched the Non co-operation movement that Gandhiji started promoting Khadi and gave the call for Swadesi and boycott of British textiles.

While there were a lot of scope for depicting poignant questions like “Does the parents have the right to decide the life of their children” and “Is it fair on the part of a father to expect his family and children to follow his ideals?”, Feroz Khan wasted this opportunity. Thought provoking is the quote ascribed to Kasturba "You want my sons to be holy men before they are men!"

“Gandhi's Prisoner? The life of Gandhi's son Manilal” by Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie would be a good read to understand Ganhi’s persona as a normal human being, which most of the biographers have neglected.

Verdict: 4/10. Avoidable movie and defiantly not great work on Mahatma as the reviewers claim!

Movie Review: Downfall (German: Der Untergang)

A lot have been said and have been written about how innocent and naive the Germans were and how the the Nazis took this to their best advantage. A lot have been said about the 'good germans' and how evil the Nazis were. To be honest, if I were living in those troubled times, there is every possibility that I would have been a willing collaborator of the Nazis. when I say this, I don't mean that I support anti-antisemitism, the violent pan Germanism and the ludicrous racial theories.

The Weimar republic Post Gustav Stresemann was morally corrupt and was defeatist in attitude. In those troubled times, the Nazis were the only ones who inspired hope and had a plan for the revival of Germany. The guilt of the Germans were not in their collaboration with the Nazis but as Albert Seer rightly points out in his memoirs written while spending his 20 year term in Spandau (I will write detailed reviews of his works "Inside the Third Reich" and "Spandau - The secret diaries" on a later date) was in not putting to see the truth, not taking the effort to know about the violent and cruel nature of the Nazi Germany. This "Faustian deal" is the eternal shame of Germany. Oliver Hirschbiegel re-iterates this point thought the recorded words of real life Traudl Junge, which is the the crescendo of his film.

"Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me,and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out."
- Traudl Junge

History is the best teacher but sadly human beings are the worst students! The experience of Germans is an eye opener for us Indians who off late have been experimenting with extreme rightist views.

Downfall depicts the final 6 days in the life of Adolf Hitler in Führerbunker (The bunker was the 13th and last of Hitler's Führerhauptquartiere or Führer Headquarters) and the death throes of Nazi Germany. Written by Bernd Eichinger and directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, it was based on the book "Inside Hitler's Bunker" by Joachim Fest, Albert Speer's memoirs, and the memoirs of Traudl Junge, secretary of Adolf Hitler.

The film begins with an interview with the real-life Traudl Junge, who regrets not recognizing the Nazi horrors and her remorse at her younger self for not realizing what kind of a monster she was dealing with. The Swiss-German actor Bruno Ganz gives a great performance as Adolf Hitler in this film, which details the last ten days of the Third Reich. Hitler and his cronies are holed in the Führerbunker underneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin as they are surrounded by the Red army. Despite the pleading from all, Hitler refuses to budge and refuses to evacuate. His iron will, which saw Nazi Germany through a lot of Military campaigns is not enough against the waves of Red army invading Germany. Hitler is shown as a human being whose beliefs are failing right infort of his eyes.

Treatment of the Third Reich is still a sensitive subject among Germans even 60 years after World War II's end and the film broke one of the last remaining taboos by its depiction of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German speaking actor. Hilter's failing health and his sorry end is an irony and is true analogy, describing the fate of "12 year of Third Reich" which was supposed to last a thousand years. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel said that his purpose was to give Hitler a three-dimensional personality. "We know from all accounts that he was a very charming man —a man who managed to seduce a whole people into barbarism."

The film was widely criticised for humanizing Hitler. Germany's tabloid newspaper Bild asked during the time of its release - "Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?" It was also criticized for presenting characters like a SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke and SS doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck into honorable human beings. Despite all misgivings, all critics and historians accept the fact that it was the most authentic portrayal of the last days of Hitler and Third Reich!

Downfall was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 77th Academy Awards but lost to "Sea Inside" (I shall write a detailed review on the same on a later date) . The film also won the BBC's 2005 BBC 4 World Cinema award and currently holds a strong position in the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Movies list.


Verdict: 8.5/10. A must watch and watch it three to four times, if you are interested in periodic films/making periodic films.