Fünf letzte Tage (Five Last Days) is a West German film about the last days in 1943 of Sophie Scholl. Scholl was a member of the anti-war group Weiße Rose. She was executed for her non-violent activities by the National Socialist regime during the Second World War. The film was directed by Percy Adlon, who also wrote the script. Eleonore Adlon was the producer, and Horst Lermer the cinematographer. The music was taken from Franz Schubert. It was released on 16 October 1982, and was first shown on public television on 20 February 1983. The film received national and international awards for actors and direction.
Plot
While the later film Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (2005) deals with the last days of Sophie Scholl from her own perspective, Percy Adlon looked at her last five days from the perspective of Else Gebel, a Christian socialist imprisoned with her. The film is focused on the women's situation, exhaustion and relationship, and not on the Gestapo interrogations and the court process.
The Lexikon des internationalen Films [de] noted: "Strict, reserved and detached, a character study in the style of a psychological chamber play that does without narrative embellishment and spectacular dramatisation." ("Streng, zurückhaltend und distanziert inszenierte Charakterstudie im Stil eines psychologischen Kammerspiels, die auf narrative Ausschmückung und spektakuläre Dramatisierung verzichtet.")[1] The journal Cinema [de] described the film as a "brittle chamber play in pale colours" ("... sprödes Kammerspiel in bleichen Farben").[2]
Niven, B.; Paver, C. (December 18, 2009). Memorialization in Germany since 1945. Springer. p. 159. ISBN9780230248502. Adlon's film draws upon redemptive quasi-religious imagery and notions of conscious self-sacrifice, heroism, and atonement in the students' actions, similar to the cultural memories of the group that emerged and were appropriated in the immediate post-war period.
Clarke, David (2010). "German Martyrs: Images of Christianity and Resistance to National Socialism in German Cinema". In Cooke, Paul; Silberman, Marc (eds.). Screening War: Perspectives on German Suffering. Camden House. p. 51. ISBN9781571134370. OCLC812654716. The film is also striking because the viewer is shown the admiring reactions to Sophie by her fellow prisoners and even her interrogator. Adlon's film gives a strong sense that the other figures already know what a significant person she is or will be in the future ...
