For some reason I have never come across this Percy Adlon
film before. Even more astonishing: this is the second film
where Lena Stolze portrayed the "White Rose" resistance
fighter Sophie Scholl in the same year! The other 1982 film
was _The White Rose_ directed by Michael Verhoeven, who also
directed Stolze as the protagonist in _The Nasty Girl_ (about
a post-WWII German writer who dug up dark secrets about her
home town during the war). Stolze is riveting to watch in
all three. She can project such innocence, vulnerability,
steeliness, inner conviction, and emotional transparency,
you wonder why she hasn't been a bigger star. She should
have played St. Joan of Arc! But perhaps Sophie Scholl is
the patron saint of Resistance in our time.

_Five Last Days_ is an austere film, shot entirely inside
an underground prison complex and told from the perspective
of Scholl's cell-mate (played by a resigned Irm Hermann), who
survived captivity (unlike Scholl who was executed after just
5 days). It makes for a restricted point of view; we don't
see the execution, for example, unlike in _The White Rose_.
But in a way that is what makes _Five Last Days_ unique, and
perhaps the superior film. The austere sets, the deliberate
movement, the abrupt fade out after each scene, even the
sparing use of music (Schubert's "Death and the Maiden")
remind me of Robert Bresson's famous prison films indeed,
especially _The Trial of Joan of Arc_. And frankly I find
this film superior to the Bresson!

_Five Last Days_ tracks the gentle mercies bestowed on the
condemned Scholl by her fellow prisoners, some of whom have
been influenced by the antiwar leaflets she has helped create
and distribute. As the hours ticks away (title cards remind
us of the inexorable passage of time) the devout Scholl muses
about God and the future of a Germany she won't see); watches
the moon from the only window and recites poems; thinks
back to her happy childhood; worries about her family and
co-conspirators; quotes Goethe and Chinese philosophers. It
is a bold, innovative screenplay that focuses on her innermost
thoughts, and Adlon deserves a lot of credit, but the film
would never have worked without Stolze's inspired, beatific
performance.

Today happens to be the 32nd anniversary of another atrocity
on its own people perpetrated by another evil regime, which
has been busy arresting protestors trying to commemorate the
massacre. To those brave protestors I dedicate this
insignificant review, as well as Sophie Scholl's last words:
To prevail. Freedom!

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