Overview
- Kirill Serebrennikov’s film, adapted from Olivier Guez’s 2017 novel, begins its German theatrical run on 23 October with August Diehl in the title role.
- The drama traces Josef Mengele’s decades in South American exile through to his death in Brazil, drawing on documented history including family support and later identification of his remains.
- Critics are sharply split, with some praising an ambitious artistic reckoning and others condemning what they see as a lack of moral distance and a willful aestheticization.
- Reviewers highlight the film’s noir-inflected black-and-white look with occasional color interludes and a perspective that frequently centers the perpetrator’s psychology.
- Coverage notes a key strand involving Mengeles son confronting the past, while also situating the film in debates over how cinema should depict perpetrators and the legacies that enabled their escape.