Is the setting 1936 or 1938?
1936 is shown at the start of the film. But in the IMDb description it says 1938, and one of the posts cited that date also.
shareI'm going to guess that it's meant to be 1936 simply by virtue of the fact that Americans could come and go, albeit with a lot of scrutiny, the presentation of the "Nazi's" (they're never identified as such, although we see the swaztika plainly in evidence and we see, and hear, some "heil Hitler" salutes) is seen mainly as an oppressor of political foes from within this unnamed nation (I think it's pretty safe to assume we're talking about Germany here). They appear to be a recently formed one-party-only state. The concentration camp, as depicted, seems to be for perpetrators of political and ideological "crimes" run by the "political police", what was probably the SA at that time? or possibly the gestappo, if it is 1938.
Although, to counter my argument, when Emmy Ritter defiantly mocks the doctor treating her in the concentration camp, talking about what sort of a performance she'll give her audience at her impending execution she speculates that the audience will not be as entertained as when they burned the synagogue or when they threw the bishop through the window to his death, which sounds more like the sort of thing that the rest of the world would have heard about after the infamous Kristallnacht of November 1938, so, maybe it is meant to be 1938? Escape was made in 1940, maybe they were using an amalgam of the previous years to set the scene for this.
If it were 1938, I think that the depiction of Germany by that time would be as a country much more mobilized for going to war. As it is in this film, Germany (oh, rather the "unnamed country") is a place that is chafing under a recently imposed rule of oppression from a national government, seen mainly as men in military uniform. All that adds up to more 1936 than it does 1938 to me. But, it may be impossible to pinpoint it one way or the other.
That's my personal assessment of the setting for this film.
I liked it. I thought it was terribly imperfect with some embarrassing moments from Shearer and Taylor, but then again, some really impressive and even masterful moments, too.
I agree with your assessment. I liked the movie too, but found it uneven. Particularly disconcerting was Taylor's penchant for shouting in incredulity about the political environment over and over again despite the native's obvious discomfort. I never traveled to the Soviet Union, but I would've had the insight to not run a loud anti-government rant to citizens in every bistro I entered.
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