Search - Council of the Gods on DVD

Very strange, very interesting movie

Thomas B. Gross | Winchester, MA USA | 01/27/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a 1949 East German film about a chemist working at I.G. Farben from the time of Hitler's rise to power to post-war Germany. It's a fairly conventional narrative which plays like any typical film of the 40s except that its political assertions are utterly bizarre.

The film purports to be based on the evidence presented at the Nuremberg trials for I.G. Farben and from other "American" sources. According to this movie, I.G. Farben was in cahoots with Standard Oil (of the USA) throughout the course of World War II through regular business dealings in Switzerland and Spain. As I watched this tale I was continuously amazed at the claims made in the film. My astonishment may have been enhanced by the fact that I didn't realize until after I watched it that it was produced in the DDR. Even knowing that, you will be amazed at how the bad guys beat the rap in Nuremberg for having manufactured Zyklon B.

All that being said, it's a well-made and very interesting film. I was particularly interested in the portrayal of Americans in this film, who speak German with American accents. The daughter of the Standard Oil executive is an especially unusual film character: a blonde bombshell who speaks German laced with American English.

It's worth seeing just to learn that there was ever a film industry capable of producing such an odd film."