Elser

15 yrs 110 minutes • 2015 • 7.0

Georg Elser was a German factory worker and carpenter who, on November 8, 1939, tried to kill Hitler with a homemade bomb placed at the beer hall Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. However, Hitler left the premises earlier than expected and escaped the assassination attempt. The explosion killed eight people and many were injured. Elser tried to fly to Switzerland but was arrested by chance. The film begins with the assassination itself and then follows the interrogation and torture when the interrogators try to get Elser to reveal his accomplices. They can not understand that he acted alone to prevent the bloodshed a world war would imply. "It's a classically-famous costume film, solid on the verge of timid but never uninteresting - and with good play by Christian Friedel as Elser and Burghart Klaußner as the interrogator Arthur Nebe, with a growing admiration for Elser's honesty and civic curriculum," Mattias writes Oscarsson in Sydsvenskan. According to Aftenblad's Jens Peterson, Elser is "fascinating and well-played German history of the attempts at resistance movement that existed".