Vadim Perlman, who directed the film "Dusty Homeland" and the high-scoring episode "Betrayal," in his latest work, sets his sights on the Nazi concentration camps in World War II, taking the audience back to a dark history that is not far away from us.
Respect for the seriousness of history, as well as the reflection on tyranny in the thick humanity and emotion, can be said to be an important measure of the quality of this genre.
But in the case of many masterpieces, it seems to be difficult to ensure these requirements while providing a "novelty" that can make the audience shine.
The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and received such a reputation as the "Russian version of Schindler's List", did just that.
At the same time, with excellent quality and a different perspective, this film has also represented Belarus in the Oscar for Best International Film, which Amway must send out -
Persian Lessons
At first glance, the title of the film, which does not match the eight rods of the Nazi concentration camp, accurately summarizes the core concept of the film.
It is this language from a distant country that controls the direction of the protagonist's fate, or this "name".
The language in the film, which bears the title of Persian, was made up on an improvised basis.
The story begins in France in 1942.
The male protagonist (Navel Perez Biscayat) who was captured by the Nazis on the run sits with a group of Jews in a rickety truck.
The prisoners who walked through the woods still did not seem to anticipate the cruel ending that awaited them in this comfortable landscape.
A Jew standing next to the male protagonist wanted to exchange a Persian book for the only piece of bread on the male protagonist's body, and the unthinking male protagonist agreed to this deal that is difficult to call a good deal.
Who knew that this book had unexpectedly become the life-saving straw for the male protagonist.
Captain Koch (Russ Edinger) in the camp had been hoping to find a Persian to teach him Persian, and it was the book that allowed Giles to survive the guns of Nazi soldiers.
Also because of the signature of the former owner of the book, "Reza June" became the name of the male protagonist in the concentration camp.
But in the face of Captain Koch, who is obsessed with studying but cautious, the difficult test that Reza has to deal with has just begun.
Around the confrontation between Reza and Captain Koch, "Persian Lessons" creates a great sense of suspense.
The "amulet" made of hasty lies and Captain Koch's heavy suspicions made every conversation between the two tense, and the seemingly quiet intermittent pauses were filled with hidden uneasiness.
In terms of horror, "Persian Lesson" provides a movie-watching experience that even surpasses many genres, and several intractable crises have been handled in unexpected ways.
Captain Koch made his own wishful thinking, and Reza was assigned to work in the kitchen during the day, and when he was finished, he came to teach Koch Persian vocabulary.
With 4 words a day, or 1152 a year, Koch expects to be about two years before the end of the war, or more than two thousand words.
For Koch, who wanted to open a restaurant in Tehran after the war, these words were undoubtedly a brick and tile on the road to his beautiful vision;
In the eyes of Reza, who has been lying and performing for his life all the time, it is an immeasurable challenge, like more than two thousand time bombs that may explode at any time, blowing up this Jew who is "walking a tightrope" in hell on earth back to his original trajectory of fate.
This also makes it difficult for "Persian Lessons" to appear in the "Persian Language Lesson" to let the audience breathe a sigh of relief, every day is a test for Reza, every second that passes is like a countdown to death, even a small slip of the tongue will end up in a disaster.
In order to perpetuate the snowballing lie, Reza was in a hurry to make every Jewish name in the camp an integral part of the pseudo-Persian language, which Was given different meanings by Reza.
Just as the idea itself is different, the film's portrayal of Captain Koch's character is also different from the portrayal of Nazis in similar genres in the past.
Compared with the commander-in-chief, he was not radical enough, and the Nazi Party or the Reich did not have a dream of a comfortable life after the war for him;
Compared with his subordinates, he did not seem to be fierce enough, and he did not kill a single person with his own hands, even if he was in such an ugly place as a concentration camp, he felt innocent, and there was no guilt to speak of.
There wasn't even a decent reason to join the Nazi Party as a young man, and Koch, who came from a poor family, may have simply wanted a decent job.
Even in the face of Reza's questioning, he accepted it calmly, and as the minister of logistics, he always considered himself to be just a conscientious cook.
In this history of hard-to-hide its bloodshed, the group Koch represents is not "vicious and vicious," but a much broader "banal evil" in comparison.
Contempt for life and blindness to atrocities have long been part of their consciousness.
It is this deep-rooted numbness that provides a steady stream of nourishment for the growth of evil, and eventually gives birth to a massacre as efficient as a factory assembly line.
The "language" in Persian Lessons cleverly unearths the contradictions that exist in the "mediocre parts" of these bloody factories.
The real German and false Persian languages each represent, in a very ironic form, two distinct sides of Koch's character.
Compared with the mother tongue distorted by Nazi ideas, this newly learned language is like a blank piece of paper, and Koch is depicted more like a sentimental ordinary person.
Often separated from a window from atrocities, he wrote poems that had been quiet for years, as if the mania in his personality and the evils in the system had all disappeared with that simple dream.
However, it is precisely the countless souls who desire peace that constitute what Koch calls "souls that desire peace everywhere."
Each of his utterances symbolizes a life soaked in blood, and the prayer for happiness is actually an echo of unspeakable crimes.
The "nameless man" in his eyes became indelible evidence that hung on his lips day and night, and the beauty of the Persian language he praised stemmed from the names of those he cared most about, and it was the names of these victims that punished Koch, who tried to escape guilt, a great irony.
The Persian Lesson strikes the perfect balance between seriousness and a slight sense of humor that comes with irony, and the restrained emotions are not released until the end with the names that Reza keeps reciting.
Of the 2,840 names that Reza remembers clearly, it was the language of these names that saved Reza's life, and Reza passed on these names without making the victims truly anonymous.
Behind each name is a once living life that is now the only mark they have ever had.
The "Persian language lesson" uses a false language to tell a most sincere attitude.
We should not forget the suffering that has actually happened and the countless people who have been crushed by it, and remembering it is also a reminder that we should not stop reflecting in order to avoid the tragic cycle of history.
This is the source of the emotional power that silences the crowd at the end of The Persian Lesson.
This attitude, which still has irreplaceable value in the present, is a beacon that guides people away from the evil of mediocrity.
PS. In fact, the wonderful rivalry between Reza and Koch in the film seems to have a clear and strange understanding direction, (manual dog head) Teacher Na's fans have long understood it