Operation Finale, Movie

Opération Finale, the Netflix Movie, is a moving tour de force of a historical drama of the capture of Adolf Eichman, the architect of the finale solution.  I remember the trial shown on television in 1961.  I would later read of Arendt’s description of the earlier Nuremberg trials as the ‘banality of evil’. Eichman was a beurocrat and the Nazi regime was the greatest beurocratic regime, all it’s participants denying responsibility, claiming they were innocent, just a cog in the modern machine.  6 million Jews mercilessly murdered by gunshot and gas.  10 million Europeans killed as ‘numbers’.  

Ben Kingsley plays Eichman in unforgettable and almost unforgivable detail.  Oscar Isaac plays Peter Malkin, a remarkable role. Remembering well the family slaughtered in the holocaust, he grows closet to Eichman but must resist the temptation to become like him. 

There’s an especially moving scene as the Israeli agents ask each other who they lost and who had survived. ‘Parents, grandparents, aunts and an uncle’, says one then another, ‘I’m the only one that survived.’  I have always been touched when Jews have told me of their losses. 

 The numbers tattooed on arms play an important role in the film and the filmatography.  I remember one man I knew showing me his number and saying, ‘I must always remember I’m more than this.’  

I have  often recommended ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, the relatively short autobiographical tale of Dr. Victor Franckl, the psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz concentration camp and wrote of his experiences.  This movie reminded me of the humanity of people despite the banality and evil of beurocratic anonymity.  It did so much to put a face and name  to the real Hitler.  By contrast I couldn’t help but think of Anne Frank seeing the  young Jewish girl, Sylvia Herman played so sensitivily by Haley Lu Richardson.  All the actors and characters were memorable but these for me stood tallest.

I especially loved Melanie Laurent who played Hanna protecting Eichman despite her own fear and loathing. 

 Director ChrisWeitz is truly amazing fleshing out this monstrous tale of character and intrigue.  He has brought such depth to what could just as well be a  Mossad snatch and grab. The suspense is great but it’s in the characters the story lives. 

I would recommend this movie to everyone, especially the young. Truly a masterpiece.