santiagocosme The movie unfolds in Argentina where a family owns a small hotel and struggles to make ends meet. One day, a friendly German appears in their lives and wishes to stay for an undefined period with them. As soon as he gets there, he slowly tries to gain the hosts' trust by taking care of their health as if he was a family doctor. However, what lies behind these good intentions is simply a thirst to continue with the experiments he conducted during the second world war for the Germans. The man in question is not just anyone. His name is Josef Mengele, the German doctor who is being hunted by the whole world. Slowly and steadily, the family are forced to rethink the whole situation and wonder whether to get rid of the German doctor who seems to be better connected than one could imagine.

Boris and Natasha Palmer Hypnotic scenery matching the scale of the Sonnenmenschen legend. The protagonist's epic ascension to the heaven with South American Alps as a backdrop. A beautiful story in 4 languages, retelling myths of Bariloche. I watched the film several times - without subtitles, without sound, and in black and white. Every time it was a different story: it started as another Nazi'xlpoitation flick, almost like Odessa files, and turned into a road movie, coming of age saga, Patagonian Lolita, and Dr. Faustus noir fairytale.Lucia Puenzo, you are a magician.I admire your maddening style of quiet ambivalence. Like the fleeing smile of Nora The Photographer. It is unusual and nice that interpretations and the final judgment are left to spectators. Plenty of untapped potential. Just imagine if authors openly took sides... :)

movies-by-db A simple Argentinian family makes a fresh start by reopening a hotel in the Pategonian mountains left behind by the mothers parents.Their first guest is a well spoken foreign man, who seems as mysterious as he is intelligent. His interest in this family and his further activities in the nearby town make us wonder about the double agenda he is keeping. As the family starts to doubt his motives, and other characters also start to show their true colors, we are presented with an intricate tale of mounting tension and international mystery. Of course we know who we are dealing with, and this type of story would work even better if that detail was unknown, but it still works so well as it remains, for the biggest part, fiction. So anything can happen. The fact that we are dealing with THIS monster just gives the whole film an extra layer of creepiness.The film, to me, didn't come across as Argentinian at all, but I guess the mountainous (and snowy) surroundings and bilingual dialogue caused that. However this didn't matter as these surroundings where pretty spectacular and almost a character of their own.Sollid acting, all around. Particularly the doctor and the girl, but really everyone involved. As said, beautiful surroundings and locations and always nice to watch a period based story (eventhough some details may not have been entirely right). And above all, great storytelling. Nicely built up tension, never too sensational and it thankfully steers clear of the expected clichés dealing with a character of such history.Great, engaging, emotional, old fashioned, must see film 8/10

maurice yacowar The original title of The German Doctor (and its source novel) is Wakolda. That's the name of little Lillith's (Florencia Bado) favourite doll, with a hole where its heart should be. When she drops the doll it's picked up and returned by the mysterious stranger, who turns out to be the sadistic Nazi scientist Dr. Josef Mengele (Alex Brendemuhl), operating under an assumed name. From that moment Mengele insinuates himself into Lillith's life and on into her parents'. The undersized girl and the empty doll attract Mengele's suspect interest, ostensibly out of compassion but really under cold detachment.The doll image is central. Lillith's father Enzo (Diego Peretti) is a meticulous one-of-a- kind doll maker who eventually gives Wakolda a mechanical heart. He also gives Lillith and her two brothers — via mother Eva (Natalia Orero), true — new sibling twins. Over Enzo's objections Eva lets Mengele treat Lillith's stunted growth and she takes his pregnancy prescriptions. At the twins' struggling birth Enzo is torn between wanting to banish the dangerous doctor and needing him to save them. In the end, after Mengele escapes the Mossad to Uraguay, he has branded the twins. One is normal, "the control"; the other struggles in Mengele's heartless experiment. When Mengele finances the mass production of Enzo's beautiful dolls he has several motives. One is to ingratiate himself yet further in the household, so he can continue his furtive and open measurements and experiments. His given excuse is "I love beauty." But he is fascinated by "the harmony of imperfections." The racks of porcelain dolls are more ominous than beautiful. They suggest an army of Aryan uniformity. In the piles of doll parts about to be assembled we are reminded of the images of concentration camp corpses. Both are Mengele's factories.Like any film set in some "then" the implicit pertinence is the "now." In 1960 Patagonia the German school remains passionately Nazi. When classmates beat up Lillith's friend for uncovering a buried cache of Nazi materials, the victim boy is expelled for belligerence. Lillith, born premature, is bullied and tormented for being short for her age. The archivist and photographer Nora (Elena Roger), an undercover agent who calls Mossad to arrest Mengele, is reported found dead in the snow the day after his escape. The film points ahead to both Argentina's Dirty War and the contemporary resurgence of anti-Semitism not just in Europe but on North American campuses. And of course, Mengele is only rumoured to have died by drowning. Wherever science proceeds blinded to humanity by a heartless curiosity the spirit of the Angel of Death survives. Those supermen who styled themselves Sonnenman, sun folk, were rather demons of the dark. For medicine, science, any branch of human learning, is like our last sense of those twins: possibly healthy, possibly deadly. The question always is: does the favourite have a heart? For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.