Mephisto (1981)
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Mephisto Movie Review
Mephisto is a 1981 German-Hungarian film directed by Istvan Szabo and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer. It is such a good, effective drama.
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“What do they want from me now?
After all, I am just an actor“
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Mephisto is a story of Doctor Faustus but transported to World War II and pre-war time period. That was an excellent, inspired choice as the two really blend well together. So an actor sells his soul in order to succeed in acting career and joins the Nazi party instead of fleeing the country like most of his friends. Yes, the drama and the conflict here is very strong and quite emotional to follow. I particularly loved its ending which is very rewarding.
I say rewarding because the film is way too long at around two and a half hours and thus some of the middle section and the first half was too prolonged and slow. But the second half is honestly terrific and very heartfelt, impactful and powerful and thus the film mostly succeeds in what it strived to do.
I liked the characters with all his friends being well developed and of course his black girlfriend is memorable and I liked the conflict that arose with her. It was subtly and very well done. The film truly deals with an interesting subject matter and theme and thus it ended up being a pretty inspired, authentic take on a tired WWII time period.
The protagonist is fantastic and so well developed. You still feel for him and understand his motivations despite him choosing the wrong thing in the end. He is so superbly realized that the drama is thus all the more powerful. But the major reason why he works so well lies in Klaus Maria Brandauer’s performance which is truly amazing. He is charismatic, likable, constantly intriguing and complex. It is one of the greatest foreign performances I’ve ever seen.
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Mephisto is not well paced and overlong, but well shot and with pretty good dialogue. The stage scenes bored me, but the various conversations, especially the ones about morals, are powerful and complex. The film is well shot too and particularly well directed by Istvan Szabo. Thus it definitely deserved its Oscar win.
Although overlong and at times slow, Mephisto is one very powerful drama with particularly strong direction from Istvan Szabo and such a phenomenal performance from Klaus Maria Brandauer who beautifully brought his complex character to life. It deals with a familiar subject matter in a new and authentic manner with interesting dialogue and themes well explored and the blend of a famous older tale and more recent time period worked almost flawlessly.
