Sydney Film Festival - Film Review - Lore

Lore - Saskia Rosendahl

Australian film director, Cate Shortland directed and produced this joint Australian-German production  based on a book of fiction by Rachel Seiffert titled 'The Dark Room'. The storyline revolves around a group of German children at the conclusion of World War II who are attempting to cross the Allied occupied Germany from their home in the Black Forest (Southern Germany) to reach their Aunt's home in Hamburg (Northern Germany). Their father, an SS Officer, has been interned by the Allies and their mother has left to join him in captivity leaving their eldest daughter 'Lore' with instructions to lead the children to safety. The film is essentially a 'road movie' following the children's journey through the deserted countryside, abandoned farmhouses, an occasional corpse and rare encounters with patrolling  US soldiers. Along the way, the children are befriended and assisted by a young Jewish man, Thomas, also making his way across the country and it is the interaction between Lore and this man which is the thematic core of the film. Ostensibly  the film narrative is a coming of age story, however the film's director, Cate Shortland also saw the film as demonstrating the conflict between the children of the oppressors (with their latent racial ideology) and the oppressed (being the young Jewish man, Thomas). This film has numerous flaws which undermine its quality at various points. The most glaring is  the original premise of the film which is undermined by the plot structure itself -  the realisation by the children towards the conclusion of the film, that Thomas whom they thought was Jewish was in fact carrying identity papers which were not his own. He may not have been Jewish at all. The protagonist interaction therefore is based on a false premise and Thomas far from being offended by anti-Jewish comments, would have welcomed them as a reinforcement of his identity at a time when it gave him an advantage. He shows little sign of being perturbed by Lore's outbursts but more the children's lack of common sense in the lawless countryside.

On another level, the very possibility of children of an SS Officer being befriended by a Jewish survivor, however mutually convenient for survival, in 1945 was remote if not ludicrous. Technically the film spends inordinate periods of time with scene atmospherics - clouds, countryside, forest, hills - and Lore's face - and almost loses continuity with the emphasis on sensual cinematographic settings.  In 1945, Germany was in chaos and severely damaged from the air bombing campaigns and the ground warfare, yet little of this is apparent in the film with a few damaged buildings and a pristine countryside. With WWII dramas there is a threshold of believability which needs to be achieved and Lore does not manage to reach that measure despite its best intentions.