the ninth day (der neunte tag) 2004 region free dvd5 german bcbc

The Ninth Day (Der neunte Tag) is a German film, made in 2004 and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. It was released by Kino International.

The film is about a Catholic priest from Luxembourg who is imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp, but released for nine days. The story is based on a portion of Pfarrerblock 25487 (ISBN 2-87963-286-2), the diary of Father Jean Bernard (1907–1994), which was translated into English by Deborah Lucas Schneider as Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau (ISBN 978-0972598170) and released in 2007.

Contains movie and Optional English Subtitles. No menus or extras. Regular DVD quality (Not BD, 1080p etc...). Seeding/Feedback appreciated. Thank You.













Synopsis

During World War II, Abbé Kremer is released from the infamous Dachau concentration camp and sent home to Luxembourg. But it's not a reprieve. He soon learns that he has nine days to convince the Bishop of Luxembourg to work with the Nazi occupiers ... or he'll be transferred to a death camp in the East. Ulrich Matthes, August Diehl, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana Beglau and Germain Wagner star. Volker Schlodorff directs.



Cast

August Diehl, Ulrich Matthes, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana Beglau, Germain Wagner, Jean-Paul Raths, Ivan Jirik, Karel Hromadka, Miroslav Sichmann



The Ninth Day Film Review

A Cruel Choice for a Priest Manipulated by the Nazis

By A.O. SCOTT

MAY 27, 2005

Tall, hollow-cheeked and unnervingly thin, the German actor Ulrich Matthes is well suited to playing men living at moral extremes. In "Downfall," Oliver Hirschbiegel's drama of Hitler's last days, he played Joseph Goebbels, and his quiet, weirdly sensitive portrayal of Goebbels's fanatical loyalty was, in its way, a more frightening portrait of monstrosity than Bruno Ganz's ranting impersonation of the Führer himself. Now, in "The Ninth Day," a somber, thought-provoking new film by Volker Schlöndorff, Mr. Matthes approaches the historical catastrophe of Nazism from the side of its victims. He plays the Rev. Henri Kremer, a Roman Catholic priest from Luxembourg who is sent to Dachau and then released in an act of clemency that only reveals the depth and inventiveness of Nazi evil.



Mr. Schlöndorff begins with Kremer's arrival at the camp, and in a few quick, confidently edited scenes takes the measure of its horror, altering the speed and the color balance of the film to suggest the sensory disorientation that being in such a place must entail. The few moments of brutality we witness are sufficient not only to convey the specific terrors of Dachau, but also to remind us that the Nazis were capable of even worse.



The purpose of "The Ninth Day," based on a true story, is not to document atrocities, but rather to delineate an ethical crisis, and Mr. Schlöndorff, working from a script by Eberhard Görner and Andreas Pflüger, does this with an efficient if somewhat heavy hand. The drama really begins once Kremer is sent home to Luxembourg on a nine-day furlough. He steps back into a hollowed-out version of his previous life -- his wealthy family has been evicted from their home; the local bishop has not left his church since the Germans arrived -- resembling a creature from another world. He seems, at first, to have been broken by the camp, which has left him fearful and confused as well as physically weak.



Taking advantage of this condition, Untersturmführer Gebhardt (August Diehl), an ambitious young German officer (who is also a former seminarian), offers him a deal. Kremer had previously denounced Nazi racial policies, but if he can persuade his bishop to declare Nazism compatible with church doctrine -- or, failing that, if he will make such a declaration himself -- he, his family and his fellow clergymen will be spared the worst persecution.



This proposal, intended both to co-opt the church and to create a schism within it, reveals the cruel logic of totalitarian power, which works partly by scrambling and subverting the moral norms of its victims, by forcing even the righteous into circumstances where some form of sin is the only response. The costs of resistance are intolerably high -- in the Netherlands, according to the bishop, a high-ranking church official's open denunciation of the German occupiers has led to the deportation of tens of thousands of Dutch Catholics -- but so is the price of collaboration. In the course of "The Ninth Day," we see Kremer paralyzed by this dilemma, wavering between anger, despair and resignation and finally arriving at as much clarity as the situation allows.



Mr. Schlöndorff is a master of what might be called the moral thriller. In films like "Circle of Deceit," "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Legend of Rita," he explores difficult, contradictory choices made under various forms of political pressure. "The Ninth Day" is smaller and more schematic than those films, and it lacks a fully realized central performance, like Mr. Ganz's in "Circle" or Bibiana Beglau's in "Rita." Mr. Matthes sometimes seems to disappear into his dark robes and the shadows of his face, and his emotions don't always register through the dim cinematography. Too many of his scenes are expository -- a series of theological and ethical debates that lay out the film's themes without sufficiently dramatizing them. Still, those themes are potent ones, and "The Ninth Day" succeeds in illuminating an almost unimaginably dark story.