When Hitler captured the pink rabbit: the Canal |Blind Article

When Hitler Took the Pink Rabbit is a very beautiful film that is an adaptation of Judith Kerr's autobiographical novel about the exile she experienced when she was nine years old.

Caroline Link and Anna Brüggemann's screenplay begins in 1933, just before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Members of a Jewish family, whose famously criticized father is very bitter against the politician, decide to go into exile in Switzerland, before going to France, and then settling in England. The young girl will then tell her story and show the spectators the years she has lived, at the height of a child.

Indeed, Caroline Link's film always takes place at the level of the main character, the youngest daughter of this family. So it is through his eyes that most of the events are shown. Although a few passages presented by other characters allow us to understand other elements that the protagonists face.

Released in 2019, the feature film is aimed at a young audience, while being exciting for an adult to follow. Especially since we can discover in another way the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933, his growing fierceness against the Jews, whom he already locked up in camps, leading to the suicide of many, and the beginnings of the future war to come.

The staging is very good. It is based on a superb reconstruction of the 1930s, in Germany, Switzerland and France. A very nice job on the sets by Susann Bieling and on the costumes by Barbara Grupp has been done. So we really have the impression of being thrown back decades. The story also makes you aware of a number of things that were common in life in the past, including the difference in education between girls and boys. In addition, the very beautiful natural landscapes, mainly those of Switzerland, from time to time bring a certain lightness, which the family's growing lack of resources gradually attenuates.

The beautiful photography of Bella Halben and the delicate music of Volker Bertelmann softens an often tender and funny work, but behind which this trauma of leaving your country regularly returns through this pink rabbit, an adored plush, that the child has had to leave behind.

The interpretation is very good. Riva Krymalowski is formidable in the title role of the young girl in the family. Carla Juri is very good at her mother's. And Oliver Masucci is impeccable in that of his father. As for Marinus Hohmann, he is superb as an older brother.

When Hitler Seized the Pink Rabbit is a very good film and a beautiful adaptation of an award-winning children's work that has been translated around the world. With a story full of strength and warmth, very beautiful staging, remarkable work on the sets and the costumes, and great actors, one should not really miss this feature film allowing us to remember a past not so far away and to show that family can be stronger than anything.

Touching and powerful.

SYNOPSIS

This historical family drama tells the story of a little German Jewish girl whose happy and carefree existence was turned upside down by Hitler's rise to power in Berlin in 1933. Nine years old, intuitive and sensitive, she foretells the catastrophe to come by taking refuge in his child's world. When she has to go abroad to secretly join her father, a blacklisted playwright, she realizes that her life will never be the same again. On her journey, she learns of exile and the loss of her roots. In adapting Judith Kerr's best-selling, semi-autobiographical children's novel, Oscar-winning filmmaker Caroline Link is making a touching film about family and childhood.

Durationof movie: 

1 hour 59 minutes

- Original title:

 Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl

- Release date:

 01/14/2021

- Director: Caroline Link

- Writer: 

Caroline Link, Anna Brüggemann based on the work of Judith Kerr

- Performers: 

Riva Krymalowski, Marinus Hohmann, Oliver Masucci, Carla Juri, Justus von Dohnányi, Ursula Werner, André Szymanski, Anne Schäfer

- Photography: 

Bella Halben

- Editing: 

Patricia Rommel

- Music: 

Volker Bertelmann

- Costumes: 

Barbara Grupp

- Sets: 

Susann Bieling

- Producer: 

Jochen Laube, Fabian Maubach, Clementina Hegewisch for Sommerhaus Filmproduktion GmbH

- Distributor: 

Canal