Film: The Ninth Day (Der neunte Tag)

The last film of the film series "Darkness before Light" sets in February 1942. The Luxembourgian priest Henri Kremer was granted nine days’ leave from the concentration camp where he was imprisoned. The Gestapo officer Gebhardt confronted him with a life-or-death decision: Kremer was asked to betray his own convictions by persuading his national church to collaborate with the National Socialists. If he failed to do so, not only he, but also his family and his imprisoned co-brethren would be facing imminent death. For nine days, on each of which he had brilliant rhetorical and intellectual duels with the Gestapo officer, Kremer grappled with this insoluble moral conflict that defied notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The resultant film, built around extracts from the priest Jean Bernard’s diary, is a vivid and stirring specimen of polished dialogue and excellent acting that examines the eternal issue of individual responsibility.

Director: Volker Schlöndorff, colour, 97 min., 2004