My Best Enemy

Introduction

It's 1938 in Vienna, Austria and Victor Kaufman (Moritz Bleibtrau) is working in his rich Jewish father's art gallery, preparing an upcoming exhibition. To his surprise and delight, his friend Rudi Smekal (Georg Friedrich) returns from his long travels abroad. Rudi is the son of the Kaufman's housekeeper of 25 years, now passed, and Rudi is counted as one of the family. But things have changed…

The Kaufman's have come into the possession of a rare drawing by Michelangelo but unwilling to divulge much about it, to the consternation of a prudish Italian journalist who insists on agreeing with Il Duce Mussolini that it belongs back in Italy. In the drunken aftermath of a drinking session with Rudi, Victor shows his friend where the drawing is hidden, much to his father's consternation.

This is borne out when the local SS arrive at the Kaufman's house for the sole purpose of confiscating the drawing for the Reich. Betrayed, Victor confronts Rudi only to discover that he has found his calling with the black uniform of the SS. Rudi persuades Victor to hand over the drawing and he will arrange exit permits to Switzerland, to which Victor and his family agree, after signing their entire possession over to Victor's fiancée Lena (Ursula Strauss).

Unknown to Rudi though, the Nazi's double cross the family and send them off to a concentration camp, satisfied they have a valuable artefact in their possession along with expert reports certifying it's authenticity. By 1943, things are started to slow in the Nazi quest for domination with the fall of Stalingrad and the hierarchy of the Third Reich are looking to make a big show of the Axis alliance with Mussolini by presenting him with the Michelangelo drawing. But the Nazi's get a bit of a shock when the drawing is branded a fake by an Italian art expert with the ear of Il Duce.

With mere days before the meeting is scheduled to take place, Smekal is despatched by his superiors to retrieve Victor from his concentration camp home and discover the location of the real drawing. Thus begins a game of cat and mouse by Victor as he attempts to save what is left of his family, with the stakes being raised considerably when events after an aircrash lead him to attempt to swap positions with Smekal and become an SS officer…

Extras

Only a rather brief Making Of, but quite an informative one all the same.

Overall

It's no mean feat to set a film during World War II with the SS and Jews as main protagonists and aim to make people laugh without it descending into farce, but My Best Enemy treads that line carefully and evokes laughter quite skilfully.

Again the more usual trait with films of this ilk is that the poor Jew is saved by the ultimately nice guy who just happens to be a Nazi or wear the black uniform but doesn't really believe wholeheartedly in the cause. Here the hero is quite clearly the Jew, who manages to succeed in not only standing up to a lethal and bullying regime but also makes them look extremely stupid in the process, even borrowing the synonymous black SS uniform for a while to rub it in even more. It really is a comedy of errors with Victor riding his luck to extremes as things just happen to fall into place for him.

There's a great central cast who put in some marvellous performances with Bleibtrau and Strauss superb as the lovers who pull off the most daring part of Victor's plan. Friedrich does a splendid job as the childhood friend who just happens to be not very bright and makes a series of bad choices. There are also a number of good actors who very skilfully play the Nazi's as both foolish and naïve as well as almost stupid, which in a way they were in that the regime was full of automatons who couldn't act without orders from Berlin and keen to ensure that their hands were never dirty with failure.

This is a superb comedy that also has a serious side with the annexation of Austria and the impact on both the Jewish and non-Jewish population. I'm still laughing now at the memory of a couple of scenes, the almost straight comic timing from Bleibtrau and Friedrich central to its success as a film. Oh, and for the ending, well it couldn't have been done any better with Smekal thinking he's away, free and about to become very rich only to come crashing back down to earth with some familiar words echoing from earlier…

Please don't let the German language soundtrack and subtitles put you off, watch this. You won't regret it.

Recommended.