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Friday January 4, 2008

German ‘Tourists’ visits Auschwitz with lots of baggage

by michael fox
correspondent

Like the hundreds of thousands who preceded him, Sven gets off the train at Auschwitz with his suitcase in his hand, unsure what to expect.

But it’s the middle of the day, no dogs are barking and no one is yelling at him. This is present-day Auschwitz, and Sven (Alexander Fehling) is a young German non-Jew come to do his civil service.

The splendid German film “And Along Come Tourists” follows the profoundly ordinary Sven as he tries to adjust to a place where the banality of everyday life coexists with the extreme horror of the past.

Robert Thalheim’s second feature is an unassuming and unexpectedly thoughtful movie about the 21st century German response to, and responsibility for, the Holocaust. With deceptive casualness, and without ever overplaying his modest hand, the young director constructs a German-Jewish-Polish triangle that rings with a number of hard truths.

“And Along Come Tourists” screens Jan. 13 at the Castro Theatre in the annual “Berlin & Beyond” festival of new films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This is likely the only time the film will ever play a Bay Area theater, and it is highly recommended.

Michael Verhoeven’s “The Unknown Soldier,” screening Jan. 14, is the other film of particular Jewish interest in the program. This uneven documentary is a belated look at the controversial exhibition that toured Germany from 1999 to 2004 with evidence that the Wehrmacht (the regular army), and not just the SS, murdered civilians.

The aimless protagonist of “Tourists” clearly isn’t cut out for the military — the other option for German youth to fulfill their service — and he picked Auschwitz when he didn’t get his first choice, Amsterdam. (That gives you an idea of the caustic dry wit sprinkled throughout the movie.)

Friendless and mocked by the Poles he encounters in town, Sven experiences for perhaps the first time in his life what it’s like to be an outsider. With his nerdy striped polo shirts and awkward attempts to fit in, he’s a contemporary German version of the middle class, clueless American.

Sven does manage to make two acquaintances. His responsibilities include shopping for and chauffeuring a Holocaust survivor named Krzeminski (Ryszard Ronczewski), who lives on the premises and repairs suitcases for the museum exhibit. There’s something unhealthy about the fact that Krzeminski never left Auschwitz, but we’re struck more by the way he treats Sven as a doltish servant.

Sven’s other relationship is with Ania (Barbara Wysocka), a bilingual tour guide who grew up in Oswiecim (the Polish name for Auschwitz) and takes the former concentration camp and its present-day activities for granted. She looks at Sven with curiosity and bemusement, but he would like more.

While Krzeminski is chained to the past, the unsentimental Ania has her eyes on the future. Sven, who admits he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, exists in a kind of limbo between them. When he becomes sufficiently engaged to take action, he ends up looking like a naive meddler rather than a moral individual.

“And Along Come Tourists” subverts expectations by providing only the briefest glimpse inside the museum at Auschwitz, and allowing Krzeminski the most abbreviated (but strategically placed) descriptions of life in the camp. Although we anticipate the heartwarming scene of Sven and Krzeminski bonding, it’s nowhere to be found.

Thalheim drew from his own experiences at Auschwitz’s International Youth Meeting Center, and consistently grounds his story in reality. Even the revelation that Krzeminski is doing his own form of civil service is understated and underplayed.

Thalheim’s excellent film isn’t the least bit interested in assuaging German guilt or picking at a scab. It does, however, advance the notion that, 60 years on, it’s incumbent upon every German to come to terms with the Holocaust in their own way and on their own timetable.

That wasn’t part of the job description when Sven signed up for Auschwitz. But it turns out he can handle it, after all.

“And Along Come Tourists” screens at 6 p.m. Jan. 13 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., S.F.

“The Unknown Soldier” screens at noon Jan. 14. at eh Castro. Tickets cost $8-$10 and are available in advance at www.ticketweb.com and at the Goethe-Institut, 530 Bush St., S.F. or at the Castro the day of the show.

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