Max

What are you looking at with your one Warglaive? You look
like a woman with one breast. Get a complete set, idiot!

What kind of a movie goes out of its way to make you feel sympathetic for Hitler? Honestly, how did this even get green-lit in a place like Hollywood, Yid capitol of the world? I don’t know the answer to these questions, or very many others if I'm being truthful, but I do know that I am absolutely glad that it did get made, even if this particular movie is a weave of hard questions and bitter pills to swallow. It’s a story of perspectives, a story about looking at things from a different angle, and also quite a lot about Hitler.

Alright, it’s pretty much mostly Hitler.

Christ, I haven’t written the name Hitler this much since that “People I most aspire to be like” paper I did in high-school that got me kicked out of a modern history class that I wasn’t even enrolled in. You know, that and telling the ample bosomed teacher that I “came here for the view, Miss.”

True story.

Well, partly true. And in the interest of maintaining that roguish air of mystery, that makes me so enticing to the lady-types, I will let you decide which part is true.
[Hint: It’s the part about tits… It’s always the part about tits.]

We seem to be getting a little off topic here, and on a subject that - even after 60 odd years - is still a bit of a touchy subject for many people with long memories and sweet tattoos. So, as my work made me attend a sensitivity course, I am adequately trained to handle the subject. So let's get back on topic.

Max is a film about Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), young veteran of the Great War and struggling artist who comes home from battle to a country he believes was stabbed in the back by the treasonous bureaucracy and grapples with his attempt to return to a civilian life. Max Rothman (John Cusack), also a veteran and former artist, lost his arm in the war and returns to Germany to instead open an art gallery.

A chance encounter has Adolf approaches Max to try to get his work hung in Max's gallery. Max reviews his work and decides that, while the kid's got mad skillz, he fails to tap into his full potential (something which no one, ever, has wanted from Hitler) to create truly great art. Rothman - a Jew - pities the youth, who had nothing to return home to after the war, and agrees to purchase some of his work on the proviso that he continue to paint and discuss art with him.

Adolf takes refuge of a night in a beer hall where he meets Captain Karl Mayr, a Reichswehr officer (read: Nazi), who encourages him to join his political movement, the German Worker's Party. Adolf, poor and hungry and in need of a new razor, agrees to join after Karl tells him that the party will pay his expenses as well as pay him for any anti-Semitic work he produces. Win-win. After attending a party meeting Adolf sees his future lies in politics, believing that he could bring about a new Germany, free of debt and dishonor, free from the grasp of the elite, free from the humiliation suffered in her defeat and free from artificial colours and flavours.

The end to the movie is very apt, and pretty emotional. But the strange thing is that the whole time I couldn't shake the pity I felt for Hitler. I wanted to give him a bowl of soup and a hot chocolate and a blanket. I wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be alright, as long as your name wasn't Weinstein or Rosenberg or Goldman. It's a jarring realization, but one that sort of opens your mind to different views. Yeah, Hitler was a pretty ruthless dictator, and yes he was a bit of a dick, but he was also just a person, trying to do what he thought was best.

Also, Noah Taylor nails the role, bringing Hitler to life with a strange and driven passion. And as for John Cusack? Well, he's John Cusack. Enough said, watch a fucking movie once in a while, Jesus.

Overall the film is an enriching experience, and one that I would definitely recommend watching. Just maybe don't invite Grandpa Finegold around to watch it with you. It's a different look at history, one that the History channel seems to have a bias against. That's all it ever is. Nazis and Sharks.

Fuck, could you imagine if the Marine Research branch of the Third Reich ever successfully managed to recruit hypnotized sharks into the German navy? The History Channel would have a fucking field day. Nazi Shark Week! Though, to be fair, that would make for some pretty damn good television.

In closing: a good movie, one to make you think and question your perspectives. Maybe go to Germany, maybe see some of the history, some of the culture.

Just don't mention the war.