Naughty Nazis in Patagonian Argentina in 1960: Lucía Puenzo's THE GERMAN DOCTOR arrives

A huge region of both Argentina and Chile, Patagonia is often known for its desolate areas. It's a place people go to be alone. (Bruce Chatwin was a fan.) In her new film, THE GERMAN DOCTOR (Wakolda is the original Argentine title), writer/director Lucía Puenzo takes us there, but to a very different area: a gorgeous resort nestled in a mountain village next to a beautiful lake. The filmmaker also travels back in time to 1960s, a period far enough after World War II that people were beginning to move on from the Nazi atrocities to find other subjects to explore. In Argentina, however -- a country that managed to make itself into a haven for both Jews and their persecutors -- and particularly in out-of-the-way places like Patagonia, a hive of what we might call early neo-Nazis could (and evidently did) thrive.

Ms Puenzo's film (the writer/director is pictured at left) is based on what is said to be a true account of a Patagonian family who, without knowing it, housed for a time one of the world's most infamous doctors, Josef Mengele, (played by that excellent Spanish actor, Àlex Brendemühl, below), an escaped Nazi who enjoyed experimenting on concentration camp inmates and evidently took this passion with him to South America. Back in 2007 Puenzo gave us a film, XXY, that remains one of the best ever to deal with the condition and problems faced by a gender "other" and her family. In her new film, the 12-year-old girl, Eva (played by Florencia Bado), who provides the heart of this movie, is also a kind of "other," as she has inherited a gene that makes her unusually short. Do you think the good doctor might be interested in her? Were the Nazis naughty?

Puenzo has an un-pushy, easy style that allows her stories to appear to tell themselves, while letting character evolve and situation arise with less melodrama that you might expect, given the choice of her subjects.

Here, the filmmaker begins with the sight of a strange doll that means a lot to our protagonist, her father (who made it), and finally to Mengele. The doll's a symbol, all right, but it is one that, like much else in Puenzo' work, does not scream for attention but rather commands it by virtue of the doll's importance to the people we're observing. (The movie's original Argentine title, Wakolda, is actually the name given by Eva to her doll.)

The filmmaker achieves a good deal of suspense via a sub-plot involving a teacher/photographer/Israeli spy at the school that Eva attends (during the course of the movie Adolf Eichmann is caught by the Israelis, with Mengele high on the "To Capture" list). There is also suspense and a pulling in two directions, as the doctor lets it be known that he can cure Eva's too-short stature (her schoolmates, some of whom are shown above, have taken to calling her "dwarf"). But is this indeed a cure, or simply further experimentation?

Eva's mother (Natalie Oreiro, above), pregnant with twins (yet another inducement/temptation/opportunity for our Nazi doctor), wants Eva to continue growing physically. Her father (Diego Peretti, below, right), who does not trust the doctor, will have none of it, even after the medicine man makes him a solid offer to fund mass production of the doll in porcelain.

All of this activity spins around interestingly, as we become more and more aware of the growing crush our little girl has on Mengele. (Ms Bado is shown at right, with her "mentor," in the two photos below.) In a Hollywood version, all this would be brought to a pulse-racing, melodramatic finale. Instead Puenzo keeps it distanced and cool. Viewers like me will appreciate this reticence (in its home country, the movie took the year's Best Picture award); others may want more bells and whistles.

TrustMovies is pleased with the way Puenzo handles it all, though he admits the movie does not quite rise to the level of XXY, perhaps because, in that earlier film, the subject was both original and shown in a bracing, dramatic, unsentimental manner. While this film is equally unsentimental (this seems a hallmark of the filmmaker), folk my age by now have seen an awful lot of Hitler/Eichmann/Mengele movies, and so some of the bloom of the bizarre has withered from those thorny roses.

Yet the combination of excellent acting, quiet approach to the material, gorgeous locations and of course the subject itself should be enough to bring an audience of foreign-film lovers into theaters for this limited release, and more to VOD & DVD when the movie reaches those venues.

From Samuel Goldwyn Films and running just 93 minutes, The German Doctor opens this Friday in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark, in Berkeley at Landmark's Shattuck Cinemas, and in San Francisco at Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema. Starting the following week and continuing over the next month or so, the film will hit theaters in cities across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Dam it? Brian Lilla's important new doc, PATAGONIA RISING, explains why not.

I have long imagined Chile's Patagonia region to be arid, windswept, dry and uninviting, but maybe I've taken most of my cues from the late Bruce Chatwin and his once-popular book. Seeing the new documentary PATAGONIA RISING -- directed, shot and edited by Brian Lilla -- certainly opened my eyes to the beauty of the place, and particularly to its two major rivers, the Baker and Pascua, and the water flow from each, which is currently planned to be stopped by dams, in order to provide better energy for the country of Chile. The fact that the company that owns this energy project is in Spain, immediately sets up a reg flag about the downside of globalization (is there an upside?), which those of us who have seen other documentaries from Last Call at the Oasis to Cool It and even narrative films like Quantum of Solace and Even the Rain will already be well aware of.

Mr. Lilla, shown at left, has given us a film of great beauty (the vistas here are incredible) and not a little interest and importance, for if these dams get built, the damage they will do to our already fractured environment (not just Chile's but the world's oceans and who knows how many more endangered and/or soon-to-be species) is staggering. This is hardly what our globe needs just now. Going into Patagonia Rising, TrustMovies didn't know all that much about dams and hydroelectric energy, except to note that where these dams have been built of late -- in particular China but also in the country of Chile itself -- terrible population displacement has been seen with little recourse for the people displaced.

There is much more that is negative about this kind of energy, and one of the strengths and pleasures of this doc is how well it helps the viewer understand what these negatives are, how they will affect the local area, and what energy alternatives are available (such as wind energy, above, and an even better source, solar power, that Chile has the ability to tap into, bigtime) that would create even more energy -- renewable, sustainable -- than the dams themselves, at almost no cost to the environment. (You'll learn here the difference between the terms "renewable" and "sustainable," too.)

The filmmaker allows the energy company and its representative to explain its side of the story, and we also hear from the local inhabitants, most of whom appear to be against the dams, though there is one fellow who tells us that -- yes, he knows his is an unpopular stance, but -- he is in favor of building the dams. His explanation of why has to do with his own economic gain, but you can't discount his right to "getting ahead."Another fellow who owns a business in one of the towna that will be affected is positive, to a point, but seems less sure of the overall effect of the dams.

As the film move along and we learn more about the proposed "project," it begins to take on some of the characteristics of the boondoggle laid out so well in last year's Oscar-nominated doc, Battle for Brooklyn. I wish that the filmmaker could have does more investigation into the Chilean politicians who are supporting the project. A look at their campaign coffers, or the connections certain people have to certain others in Spain, might explain a lot. But the movie never goes that far.

We hear mostly from those locals but also from various scientists who explains how and why the damage from the dams will occur. This, together with the great beauty of the documentary as it shows us the gorgeous, unspoiled landscapes is enough to make the film a must-see, as well as a cause worth taking up. Patagonia Rising -- from First Run Features and lasting 88 minutes --  opened today in New York City at the Cinema Village. Currently this is the only schedule playdate, but click here in the days to come, and perhaps there will be others. I hope so, for this is a quite an important documentary.