The Last Supper

It's Berlin in 1933, and Adolf Hitler is on the verge of ultimate power. A Jewish family invites friends over to have what would normally be a routine dinner, but this 'last supper' is their final meal in what was the remnants of the old Weimar Republic. Matriarch Aaron Glickstein (Bruno Eyron) and his family are not unlike millions of other Germans who at first don’t take the Nazi threat particularly seriously. But soon the Glicksteins will be faced with a hostile environment. Once the Nazi policies become an inescapable reality, the Glickstein household finds itself experiencing the wider divisions of German society on a microcosmic level: one the one hand, his daughter Leah (Mira Goeres) discusses the possibility of moving to Palestine to escape the Nazis; on the other, he has a son who turns out to be a rabid Nazi lover and even threatens to attend a Nazi rally. Mr. Glickstein himself actually holds some surprisingly right-extremist political views himself, but he seems oblivious to the fact that such views, when made manifest in the larger German society, will end up putting his own flesh and blood in jeopardy. Director Florian Frerichs stages this entire scenario with a sort of uber-focused chamber piece approach, which can get stifling at times, although this is no doubt a very deliberate choice for style and effect. With such spartan set design, obviously a film will stand or fall on tight plot control and dialogue. And no doubt this is a dialogue-heavy affair, as the characters try and talk themselves into a better understanding of the dangerous new age they have just sleepwalked into. In the end, Frerichs shows just enough glimpses of the ominous anti-Semitic buildup happening in Berlin outside the Glickstein’s comfortable domestic walls to strike a workable balance between interior and exterior mise-en-scene. Although not completely successful with its admirably minimalist dramatic experiments, The Last Supper does still manage to find a rare original angle in its confrontation of the early days of the Nazi menace. Recommended. (M. Sandlin).