The abbreviated version of German history given here feels rushed - if this project had gone ahead a few years later, it would have been made as a limited series, for streaming
Rohm's introduced (briefly) in one scene and murdered in the next - there are entire movies to be made from events that pass by in montages
But that's fair enough - this film's aim is to offer some kind of explanation for why Heydrich was able to do the things he did, not to give a thorough account of his times
The key scenes are those where Pike's character helps him overcome a career setback by urging him to suppress emotion and a later sequence where Heydrick's reviewing footage of war crimes while a screaming Pike gives birth to their child
An impassive Heydrich's viewing is interrupted to inform him of the birth of his child, to which he responds only by asking the sex before returning to his viewing
In the previous scene, Pike's character mistook Himmler congratulating her moulding of Heidrich for him complimenting her children, inviting the viewer to see Pike's character as having given birth to Heydrich and, by extension, the Holocaust
It's at this point Himmler imparts the information that Hitler has bestowed upon Heydrich the title that also serves as the name of the film
The thesis being that by identifying something in Heydrich and, at his lowest ebb, urging him to suppress his frustrated rage and redirect it towards service in the SS, Pike's character created a creature capable of committing atrocities without emotion
Empathic response - or lack of it - is a big concern for this film
Scenes like Hitler's victory parade or the massacre of Czech peasants begin with extended first person shots, placing the viewer right in the centre of events and inviting them to experience events as if they were happening to them
Which is obviously something Heydrich was incapable of doing. Another key scene is one where Heydrich blackmails a general and threatens him with court martial for sexual indiscretion
When the general points out this is exactly what happened to Heydrich, not a flicker of emotion passes across Heydrich, meaty slab of a face
The lesson Heydrich took from his experience was that it's better to be the person doing the persecuting than the persecuted, inflicting his suffering on the entire world through a narcissistic sense of injustice
... and then it turns into a completely different movie!
Thematically, tonally, cinematography, use of music - everything about the second half of the movie is *completely* different to the first
The characters are a lot of fun to hang out with, they're good people and sympathetic characters, they fall in love and there's even a dance number!
Imperial ballrooms and stately country houses become humble bedrooms and crowded, cobbled city streets, as characters who have everything give way to characters who have nothing to lose
The film does a great job of conveying the danger and the constant fear in which anyone associated with the Czech underground lived, and the action scenes are expertly handled as well as surprisingly, brutally violent
The final battle scene is particularly effective
I'm sure there would have been a better way to integrate the two halves of the story - Operation Anthropoid chose to tell the story of the assassins alone, so if this movie had told the story of Heydrich they'd have made good companion pieces
The whiplash from the switch from traditional biopic to tense action-thriller is jarring, but if you chose to watch them as two connected one-hour dramas, they both have lots to recommend them in their own right
...
Rohm's introduced (briefly) in one scene and murdered in the next - there are entire movies to be made from events that pass by in montages
But that's fair enough - this film's aim is to offer some kind of explanation for why Heydrich was able to do the things he did, not to give a thorough account of his times
The key scenes are those where Pike's character helps him overcome a career setback by urging him to suppress emotion and a later sequence where Heydrick's reviewing footage of war crimes while a screaming Pike gives birth to their child
An impassive Heydrich's viewing is interrupted to inform him of the birth of his child, to which he responds only by asking the sex before returning to his viewing
In the previous scene, Pike's character mistook Himmler congratulating her moulding of Heidrich for him complimenting her children, inviting the viewer to see Pike's character as having given birth to Heydrich and, by extension, the Holocaust
It's at this point Himmler imparts the information that Hitler has bestowed upon Heydrich the title that also serves as the name of the film
The thesis being that by identifying something in Heydrich and, at his lowest ebb, urging him to suppress his frustrated rage and redirect it towards service in the SS, Pike's character created a creature capable of committing atrocities without emotion
Empathic response - or lack of it - is a big concern for this film
Scenes like Hitler's victory parade or the massacre of Czech peasants begin with extended first person shots, placing the viewer right in the centre of events and inviting them to experience events as if they were happening to them
Which is obviously something Heydrich was incapable of doing. Another key scene is one where Heydrich blackmails a general and threatens him with court martial for sexual indiscretion
When the general points out this is exactly what happened to Heydrich, not a flicker of emotion passes across Heydrich, meaty slab of a face
The lesson Heydrich took from his experience was that it's better to be the person doing the persecuting than the persecuted, inflicting his suffering on the entire world through a narcissistic sense of injustice
... and then it turns into a completely different movie!
Thematically, tonally, cinematography, use of music - everything about the second half of the movie is *completely* different to the first
The characters are a lot of fun to hang out with, they're good people and sympathetic characters, they fall in love and there's even a dance number!
Imperial ballrooms and stately country houses become humble bedrooms and crowded, cobbled city streets, as characters who have everything give way to characters who have nothing to lose
The film does a great job of conveying the danger and the constant fear in which anyone associated with the Czech underground lived, and the action scenes are expertly handled as well as surprisingly, brutally violent
The final battle scene is particularly effective
I'm sure there would have been a better way to integrate the two halves of the story - Operation Anthropoid chose to tell the story of the assassins alone, so if this movie had told the story of Heydrich they'd have made good companion pieces
The whiplash from the switch from traditional biopic to tense action-thriller is jarring, but if you chose to watch them as two connected one-hour dramas, they both have lots to recommend them in their own right
...