The end of the Second World War has now been 80 years ago, only a few contemporary witnesses are alive. Fortunately, practically every aspect of the Third Reich is likely to have been examined, processed in books and discussed in films. The Italian director Silvio Soldini, known in Germany primarily through his comedy success “Bread and Tulp” with Bruno Ganz, has now yet found a topic that was still uncovered-although also a very speculative:
In “The pre -tasters“When it comes to a group of young women in 1943 and 1944 not far from Adolf Hitler's shelter in East Prussia in East Prussia, to prevent the food of the dictator in order to prevent possible poisonous strokes. What sounds at first glance as a strange and potentially exciting look at the Nazi leadership consecutive, but soon proves to be more than sluggish, which is just a matter of letting Too well-known clichés and stereotypes of the Second World War genre varies.
The young women have to eat the dictator's food – whether they want or not.
November 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad is lost, the Second World War inevitably comes to an end, but the war is still raging. The young rose (Elisa Schlott) flees in front of the Allies air raids from their Berlin homeland to East Prussia, where their in-laws live in the small village of Groß-Partsch. Meanwhile, Rose's man is missing somewhere in Russia, the hope of seeing reunion is low, the need for it, the food is scarce.
It almost looks like a wink of fate that Rose is recruited from the SS to a special service: together with other young women from the village, she should taste the food of Adolf Hitler. He stumbled near Groß-Partsch in the legendary Wolfschanze, where the assassination attempt on July 20 will take place a few months later. But Hitler remains unapproachable, whereas Rose will soon be tied up with the tight SS officer Albert Ziegler (Max Riemelt) …
A (maybe) true story
Officially, “The Pre -Kosters” is based on a 2018 novel by Rosella Postorino, which has not yet been in German, but under two titles, “The Women at Hitler's Table”* and “At the Wolf's Table”*, has been published in English. In the book, the author processes Margot Woelk's experiences, a woman who died in 2014 at the fabulous age of 96, who only went public with her spectacular life story shortly before her death. Her story seemed almost hair -raising, which, however, is very questioned by independent historians. There have never been a preliminary tastier in the Wolfschanze, reports on young women who tasted the leader's food have not been handed down. The waves of the war have destroyed all the traces, if they existed at all.
It is not surprising that the German media jumped on Woelk's history and reported in detail. Finally, it sounds about Morbide that Adolf Hitler, like medieval kings or modern autocrats, became so paranoid for fear of attacks that at some point the banal soup was a fatal threat. When the young women sitting at the table with Hitler's cook in the film and tasting tasty dishes, it has a banalizing or strange effect, depending on the point of view, when Hitler's penchant for a vegetarian is being discussed or you are happy that the guide has been able to sleep well for the last few days.
Too much is also known to many others to film to many others.
Of course, Soldini does not dare to emphasize the absurdity of the situation, even if the fabric – whether true or not – would have had a lot of potential for a farce. Instead, it stays serious, very serious: the colored pictures remain just as dark as the mood of women. Finally, they write the SS men together in a typical Kino SS manner, while the violins whine in the soundtrack and indicate the approaching disaster. Excitement should not arise from the question of whether Hitler is really poisoned, as is well known, the dictator only ended in Berlin in April 1945, but from the fate of young women, especially pink.
But it remains as pale as the others, who are schematically between dedicated Nazi fanatics, who believe in the final victory until the end, and those that are already afraid of the Russians. There is also a hidden Jew, of course you want to say. You know this and pretty much everything else from the too many similar films that have been created in recent decades. In the end, “the pre -tasters” is nothing more than another film about the Third Reich and the Second World War, which chose an apparently new approach, but still has nothing new or even original.
Conclusion: With his strained drama “The Pre -Kosters”, Silvio Soldini does not succeed in gaining new aspects to the topic of the Second World War/ National Socialism in the cinema. His (possibly) based on true events about a young woman who tests Hitler's food as a pre -tasting Hitler remains both in terms of content and stylistically, and ultimately only varies well -known clichés and stereotypes.