Aryan Papers Review – Holocaust-themed thriller meant well but turns out to be a shockingly weak effort | film

TThe drama set in World War II should not be confused with a popular unrealized film project with a similar name. This is the Holocaust-themed film based on Louis Begley’s novel Wartime Lies, which Stanley Kubrick tinkered with for years before finally abandoning it; Suspiria director Luca Guadagnino is now rumored to be trying to get it off the ground. Like the Kubrick/Guadagnino film, These Aryan Papers, written and directed by ultra-low-budget director Danny Patrick (The Film Festival, The Irish Connection), takes its name from the certificate issued by the Nazis, also known as Arrirnachuiswhich people were forced to carry during those dark times to prove that they were not Jews, Roma, or other persecuted minority.

Apparently, Kubrick abandoned Aryan Papers in part because he feared it wouldn’t do well at the box office if released after Schindler’s List — just as Platoon appears to have eclipsed Full Metal Jacket. Fortunately for Guadagnino, regardless of whether or not his Aryan cards turn up, he won’t have much to worry about in terms of Patrick’s film, a work that with any luck will be forgotten by next week. Like the embarrassingly bad comedy The Film Festival (AKA The Worst Film Festival Ever), this is a shockingly bad effort on almost every level, from the inept and formulaic screenplay, the sluggish use of clearly non-German locations and the lack of time limit (a modern plastic trash can can be seen in several shots), to the insultingly bad acting throughout.

The story, if you know, takes place mostly near Stuttgart in 1942. Patrick’s ragged liberation, possibly guided by random coin tossing, makes pinpointing the timeline particularly confusing, but essentially we’re following characters living in a facility dedicated to raising Aryan children known as the Lebensborn Programme, by pairing screened young women with Nazi officers. One of the women, Spanish-born Gisela (Celia Learmonth, one of the film’s most capable actresses, who struggles mightily with what she has to work with), eventually tries to smuggle two young Jews, Benjamin (Jacob Ogle) and Judith (Niamh Ogle), across the border to safety. Her plans are partially thwarted by the evil blonde bitch Helga (played mostly by Leona Clarke, but also by Kara Chase in a present-day framing device), who is shagging the unit’s leader and is perfectly willing to shoot crying mothers.

One can forgive the hasty look of budget-challenging proceedings, but less good faith can be dispensed with by painfully unrehearsed, monotonous performances. It’s as if Patrick recruited the cast through an ad in a newsagent’s window and paid everyone in sandwiches and soft drinks for a day’s work. There’s an honesty here that suggests Patrick and his cast and crew mean well enough, but frankly that’s a bit of an insult to the victims of the Holocaust.