Conspiracy (2001)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is an important film, if only because of its extremely rare subject matter, the single meeting leading to the extermination of all the Jews of Europe. I was completely unaware of such a secret meeting, held in Berlin without even the physical presence of Hitler himself. This powerful film belongs to its central star, Kenneth Branagh, who commands the proceedings with the actual gravitas of a true Nazi general. In a word, his performance was both simultaneously charming, and pathologically serious, all in one, irresistible package. He was riveting. Although the role of Adolf Eichman, portrayed by a solid Stanley Tucci (particularly in one memorable speech) was effective, alas, most all of the supporting cast of movie Nazis (all English performers, as always), they were all there, clearly, to support Branagh's standout performance and character.

Conspiracy (2001)No question here—finely made, piercing and disturbing movie made with high realism about a famous Nazi meeting where it become official policy to exterminate the Jews of Europe.That's enough to make watching it necessary—at least the first half hour, where the cold-blooded tone and the top-down enforcement of brutality (over the wimpy objects of a few at the meeting) are made clear and chilling. Kenneth Brannagh is almost too brilliant at his role, playing the smart, unyielding, pushy yet conniving officer at the head of his meeting. He's so natural and so not overacting it's terrific. Equally strong in his lesser role as the notorious Eichmann is Stanley Tucci (whose atrocities would only grow as the war wore on—the officer in charge of the meeting was soon assassinated by a pair of British experts).You'll note Colin Firth in a slightly more sympathetic role as Dr. Stuckart— Stuckart hates the Jews but only enough to want to sterilize all 11 million of the, not kill them. And the actor Brendan Coyle known as Mr. Bates in "Downton Abbey" makes a supporting appearance here, a decade earlier.Tightly filmed, scripted according to one surviving set of notes from the proceedings, and played with efficiency, this is a great fast entry into the minds of the Third Reich. Thoroughly impressive.That doesn't mean it's a totally "great" film in part because if its intentions. It recreates the meeting but the meeting, as drama, is more historically interesting than actual theater—or Hollywood. It has a lot of convincing talk, and a lot of the same evil themes and attitudes throughout. After awhile it isn't so much about dramatic development but about seeing how the history might have actually looked.

The film documents a meeting held during WW2, when SS second-in-command, Reinhard Heydrich, assembles a group of Nazis to discuss the final solution of the Jewish question. The Wannsee conference is held in a German country house in snowy Berlin, the Nazis sit around a table for most of the film, occasionally getting for drinks, while enjoying buffet lunch. The debate is whether to execute the Jews or sterilise the Jews, discussing what method is the most efficient/effective option of eliminating the entire Jewish race.There were mant attendees including : Reinhard Heydrich, Otto Hofmann, Heinrich Müller, Karl Eberhard Schöngarth, Gerhard Klopfer, Adolf Eichmann, Dr. Rudolf Lange, Dr. Georg Leibbrandt, Dr. Alfred Meyer, Dr. Josef Bühler, Dr. Roland Freisler, Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, Erich Neumann, Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger and Martin Luther. The range of attendees symbolises the various natures of the Nazi culture.During in the deep discussions that are going on round the table, Heydrich proposes methods of how to exterminate the whole race, he proposes sterilisation or execution. Heyrdrich reveals that some of the execution methods are already in place; like the gas vans, this surprises some of the attendees that are round theb table who start to doubt the regime, however the people who are not totally sure on what should happen to the Jews are threatened lightly by Heydrich to make up their minds. Some parts of the film are very comical using language to provoke certain feeling and to interact with the reader.However there is very limited evidence to support what happened at the Wannsee conference therefore some of this information in the film could be unreliable, but it does create a very good sense of personalities and views towards the Jews at the time conveying that it was a one way journey for the Jewish race and that only one thing was going to happen to them.Overall this film, conspiracy, in my opinion is very good in portraying people's views in the Nazi party and that there were a diversity of opinions towards what was going to happen. However it is quite a short film therefore it will not give the viewer a full sense of what the conference was like.

Although this film was very boring as it was based mainly around a conference table I still feel that it was very informative and showed what happened when they was deciding whether or not to kill the Jews. I think that there was a great cast in the film and they all played a very good part in their given roles. when deciding whether or not to kill the Jews, there was many debates about why they were doing it. when they eventually decided that they were going ahead with it, they then had a debate on how they was going to do this and come to a conclusion that they would use gas chambers to do this. this film was very interesting because it was clear on its intentions to show people what happened around that table in Wannssee, Germany in 1942, it also showed us who attended the conference, some of these people were Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Müller, Adolf Eichmann and Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger. the actor Kenneth Branagh played the role of Reinhard Heydrich who was the organiser and main speaker in the conference, he was the one who made the final decision and had the final say. I thought this was good because it showed the level of authority each member of that conference had and clearly showed who was more powerful than others. from this film i found that the Wannsee conference didn't last as long as i thought and the decision was made fairly easily.