Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg exists in a weird class by itself. As an historical drama that tackles aspects of the Holocaust, it faces an uphill battle against horror and dreariness while presenting itself as an entertainment. The movie is indeed horrifying, uniformly dreary in atmosphere, and deeply engrossing; it’s a romanticized account of a true hero. It’s almost like a Hollywood script directed as a ‘foreign movie,’ and becomes a surprisingly successful adaptation of a true story.
Raoul Wallenberg has spent his blessed life as if in a dream. He becomes a highly educated architect while in America in the early 1940s, before returning to his home in Sweden to while away empty moments as an importer of delicacies. His grim witnessing of a Nazi crime while on holiday wakes him up, prompting the self-pronounced ‘mediocre human’ to commit to saving Jews from extermination by becoming a gray-area diplomat of the Swedish Embassy, even though he possesses virtually no qualifications. That takes care of the movie’s first ten minutes. What follows is an almost unbelievable tale of suffering, heroism and human endurance as Wallenberg struggles to save an entire ghetto in Budapest – 65,000 people – from indifferent, sadistic death.
The dour Wallenberg appears to feel and suffer as much as the nearly crushed, weary people he’s trying to save. They have given up, yet he comes alive, in a way, as he rationally faces down seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s a role Kevin Spacey (following Robin Williams ‘90s career arc) would kill for, and Stellan Skarsgard gives an effortless performance. Most of the time he’s silent, while his character is simply striving to comprehend the insanity of the situation while giving hope to the hopeless. From a pallid face, his tired, bruised eyes calmly, slowly search the room for any intimation of substance or reality. Skarsgard delivers a performance of tremendous, measured dignity with many unseen, conflicting layers.
Skarsgard’s colleagues evince the same realism in the roles of the somnambulistic ghetto refugees, Wallenberg’s staff of potential victims, and the seemingly soulless Hungarian and German soldiers doing the killing. It is not a movie of happiness and light, but the sincere attention to detail and realism in these performances makes it completely enthralling nonetheless. The Teutonic look of the film, including slow, unpretentious camerawork, completes the world. The surreal atmosphere of pervading grays and blues within these cavernous Budapest ruins underscores the unreality of the proceedings, contrasting and intensifying their truth.
As a wrenching drama about a horrible historic event, this movie won’t likely attract Larry Lunchpail looking for a light evening, but for doing what it does so perfectly, it should. Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg is in Swedish, German, and Hungarian, with English subtitles, but is so enthralling you won’t notice. With performances that are universally excellent and wholly lacking in guile or pretension, a lushly photographed if unrelievedly creepy setting, and a plot full of phenomenal horror and hope, this film is a triumph.
With performances wholly lacking in guile or pretension, a lushly photographed creepy setting, and a plot full of phenomenal horror and hope, this film is a triumph.- Kurt Dahlke
