Does anyone have a problem with this?
I have an ethical disagreement with this film, on the grounds of meddling with history and historical fiction. It goes like this:
The song "Gloomy Sunday" ("Szomorú Vasárnap" in Hungarian)is a real song, and the urban legend about the suicides it has inspired is as true as urban legends get. However, the song was not written by András Arádi, as in the film; the real composer is Rezső Seress, a similar sort of man who allegedly wrote it over a breakup with a lover. He even committed suicide himself, although he actually jumped out a window in 1968. While I'm a little miffed about not giving due credit to a real person for his own song, okay, I'll go with it. Reluctantly. They're making up things about his love life, so call it artistic license and make up a new character.
Here's what I'm not so sure I can appreciate: the character of Hans Wieck. Fine until he reappears in Budapest as the Nazi official in charge of transporting Jews to Auschwitz. He saves Jews from the camp for 1,000 USD, and at the end of the movie is heralded as having saved over 1000 Jews. HERE'S THE RUB: there actually was someone in that exact position, a lieutenant with that precise function, and this man who did NOT save those thousand Jews was REPLACED with a fiction. It's like wiping out history, on a subject and scale that really shouldn't be tampered with. There WERE actually people in Budapest who did save Jews in those numbers, notably Raoul Wallenberg, and in my opinion, to invent a Nazi character who takes credit for something like that in the very same city, even in fiction, is a disservice to Wallenberg's memory. The very scale of the claim is really what offends me. No doubt, there are many instances of Nazi officials being paid off to spare Jews, and the claim of 3 or 5 or 10 cases with Wieck's character wouldn't be nearly as offensive. Numbers like that could reasonably be written off as artistic license, saying something about the commercial regard to lives in WWII.
My disagreement with this is further deepened by the fact that the movie mixes fact and fiction so readily in regards to the song as well. Using such a real and famous song and legend leads to confusion as to whether this is just a fictional melodrama or a factual biopic, in which case, it completely obscures the replaced Nazi lieutenant's reality , as well as Rezső's authorship and life story.
I'm not saying that it's a poorly done film (the cinematography is pretty good, as is most of the acting), and I'm not saying I would censor the film or anything, I just had this debate with my girlfriend over whether or not it was a worthy story to tell. I don't even really think it's artistic enough to be talking about love and death and menage-á-trois, and least of all, about the Holocaust. If I had been the producer, the script would never have gotten this far in this form. I'd also like to add that I'm not Jewish or personally affected by the Holocaust or anything, I'm just uncomfortable with screwing around with such delicate history. I mean, there are still Holocaust deniers out there claiming that it never happened, or that it wasn't that bad! This is ammunition for them.
Tell me what you think, my girlfriend says I'm overreacting and that it's just a story like any fiction that uses fictional characters.