The Ogre

Volker Schlondorff, director of the Oscar-winning The Tin Drum, once again explores the black heart and dark soul of Nazi Germany. John Malkovich gives a towering performance worthy of Oscar consideration as Frenchman Abel, a man-child who sees himself as a protector of children. Throughout his life, this put-upon outcast and misfit (a kind of French Forrest Gump) imagines that "enormous events are going to be arranged solely to carry me forward on the path fate has laid out for me." That path leads him from the front lines in World War II to the Prussian forest where he is employed in the fairytale castle of Hermann Goering, where his affinity with children earns Abel the job of recruiting young children from the countryside into Hitler's army. The Ogre, based on Michael Tournier's novel The Erl King, is, like The Tin Drum, disturbing, challenging and decidedly adult. It is not what one could call "entertainment" and certainly a world apart from the fabled uplift of Life is Beautiful (which may be why it took two years to find even limited theatrical distribution in the United States). Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)[DVD Review—Aug. 7, 2007—Lionsgate, 118 min., R, $19.98—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1996's The Ogre sports a mediocre transfer and has no DVD extras included. Bottom line: a somewhat disappointing release of a solid film.]