The German Doctor

Along with other Nazi war criminals, notorious concentration camp physician Josef Mengele—best known for selecting prisoners at Auschwitz to die, and for his mad, unscientific “experiments” on victims—vanished to South America after World War II. For decades, Mengele moved around the continent, always escaping capture, before finally dying in 1979. Writer-director Lucia Puenzo's The German Doctor is a borderline-horror tale based on events involving Mengele's 1960 association with an Argentine family whose hotel on a pristine mountain lake became home to the fugitive for awhile. The parties meet when Mengele (Àlex Brendemühl), who is traveling alone under the alias of Helmut Gregor, asks if he can follow Enzo (Diego Peretti) and his family home as they drive over a dangerous mountain road. A long shot of Mengele's car pulling too close to Enzo's in a sudden storm is suggestive of what lies ahead once the monster insinuates himself into the lives of Enzo's wife (Natalia Oreiro) and pre-teen daughter (Florencia Bado). Deftly balancing thriller aspects with disturbing details about Mengele's obsession with genetic experimentation, this powerful drama is recommended. (T. Keogh)