Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Serebrennikov’s ‘La Disparition de Josef Mengele’ Opens in French Theaters

Critics spotlight a stark black-and-white palette, a jarring color incursion, the director’s “therapy of shock” rationale.

Overview

  • The film adapts Olivier Guez’s Renaudot-winning book to trace Josef Mengele’s postwar escape across South America.
  • Kirill Serebrennikov says he places the camera in Mengele’s head to examine the banality and roots of evil.
  • Shot mostly in black and white with a brief, violent color passage depicting Auschwitz crimes, the film seeks to force confrontation through shock.
  • August Diehl’s lead performance draws notice for its chilling focus, with reviews describing the experience as intense and uncomfortable.
  • The narrative includes a fraught exchange with Mengele’s son and recalls the Nazi doctor’s death in Brazil in 1979 without trial.