Cast: John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Leelee Sobieski, Molly Parker, Ulrich Thomsen
Director: Menno Mayjes
Producer: Andras Hamori
Screenplay: Menno Mayjes
Cinematography: Lajos Koltai
Music: Dan Jones
U.S. Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Max has been labeled as controversial, and for good reason: it paints a portrait of the most heinous criminal of the 20th century, Adolph Hitler, in a manner that refuses to demonize him. Instead of viewing Hitler as a soulless monster, writer/director Menno Mayjes has elected to represent him as a human being – a vile, deeply troubled, hateful human being, to be sure – but a human being nonetheless. Admittedly, this is Hitler circa 1918, not the Hitler who led Germany into a world war and made an attempt at genocide. Still, Mayjes' assertion that Hitler's evil was at least in part the result of external pressures will offend some. (It's the age-old "nature versus nurture" debate.)
As the title indicates, the lead character is not Hitler, it's Max Rothman (John Cusack), a fictitious individual based on a composite of real-life people encountered by Hitler in post-World War I Germany. Max is a veteran who returned from a war without a right arm, but with his sanity, practicality, and dry wit intact. He's also a Jew and a realist. His business is in dealing art, and the money he makes from it allows him to support two children and a loving wife, Nina (Molly Parker), and keep a young mistress, Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), on the side. It is through the art business that Max comes into contact with Hitler (Noah Taylor).
At the age of 30, Hitler is gaunt, humorless, and agitated. He is also a painter, and he strikes up a deal with Max to sell his art. But, while Max believes that Hitler shows promise, the potential is never realized on canvas. Instead, with the help of an Aryan officer named Captain Mayr (Ulrich Thomsen), Hitler begins to funnel his energy into politics, and, in particular, into fiery speeches laced with anti-Semitism and references to "pure blood." There is no doubting either Hitler's charisma or his madness during these speeches, and, in the bleak post-Versailles Treaty climate of a beaten Germany, it's easy to understand how he could have amassed a following.
Ultimately, the movie's failing is that it concentrates too much on Max, when Hitler is by far the more compelling individual. Max, by contrast, is flat. This has nothing to do with John Cusack, who is effective as a steadfast pragmatist and achieves the low-key approach desired by Mayjes. But, whereas Max is an ordinary man, Hitler is anything but that, and Noah Taylor's portrayal is stunning. This is the most astonishing performance of the actor's career – which is saying a lot, considering that one of his previous roles, that of the young David Helfgott in Shine, was lauded by critics worldwide (even those who didn't like the film praised Taylor's work). Max ignites when Taylor is on screen. It frequently becomes sluggish when the focus is exclusively on the title character and the individuals surrounding him. Ultimately, I didn't care enough about Max's relationships with his wife and mistress for those scenes to have meaning.
The film's subtext deals with art and propaganda, and the line dividing the two. After Hitler gives up painting, he declares that he has discovered a deeper, more true form of art: giving speeches, with the audience as his canvas. Max, not noticing Hitler for what he truly is (or possibly badly misjudging the German people's reaction to him), sees the man's views of the future (with sketches of large buildings, wide roads, and soldiers in uniform) as a form of art. He does not consider the hatred and poison that underlie Hitler's vision.
There is much irony in Max's final scenes, which raise some interesting questions about what might have been. In fact, those are questions posed by the film as a whole. If Hitler was as much a product of his environment as of his innate nature, would it have been possible for some strong hand to have molded him into something different? Scholars, psychologists, and theologians can debate the point at length, but there's no doubt that Meyjes' approach is as provocative as it is controversial.
© 2002 James Berardinelli