John Madden's, The Debt (2010), is a film that looks back on a espionage mission of three Mossad secret agents who track down a former Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen) "The Surgeon of Birkenau". The film reveals the "real story" of the capture of the feared surgeon of Birkenau by the three Mossad agents. What is revealed as the film unfolds is that the infamous story of the three secret agents that caught and killed Vogel is not actually what really occurred the night the Vogel escaped. The begining of the film shows the, now retired, agents 30 years later. The three have been hailed for their accomplishments in providing justice for all those that fell victim to the surgeon. The viewer sees, however, that Rachel (Helen Mirren) and David (Ciarian Hinds) are having qualms about keeping their secret a secret now that they know where Vogel resides. David steps out in front of a bus due to the stress of the matter at hand. Prior to his death, he speaks to Rachel about coming out with the "real" truth about that particular night. She denied him and does not give her blessing to reveal their story. She is now the one that has to go and "deal" with Vogel to keep their secret away from the press and to save face with her and Stephan's (Tom Wilkinson) daughter. 
The film's ideology is more implicit than explicit but embodies both ideological themes. The three scenes shown here are examples of the film showing implicit values. The first image is of Rachel in the institution where Vogel now resides. The viewer can see the hesitation she has in killing the old man. She then realizes that this old man is not the real Vogel but rather someone pretending. She leaves a note for the reporter to publish whatever information he gets from the old man during their interview - she knows that he doesn't have any significant information because he is not Vogel.
As she is leaving the institution, she catches a mans eye coming down the stair case and immediately knows this is Vogel. She follows him up the stairs and into a bathroom. They fight and both are stabbed. As soon as the viewer and Vogel thinks that Vogel has won again, he falls to the ground and stabbed in his back is the lethal injection that kills him on the spot.
During her altercation with Vogel in the bathroom she is reminded of how ruthless and coldhearted the old man is and was. Her morals and hesitation is no longer and she finally gets justice for all his victims and especially for David.
The next image shows the now aged Rachel, who is feeling run down and exhausted from the publicity of the falsely told story of how they caught and killed the infamous Surgeon of Birkenau. The viewer can see how this lie has taken a toll on her but she stands by their story for her countries sake. This is where you see explicit values within this film. The patriotism that the three characters have for their country and their mission of bringing justice to the victims of Vogel shines through but also proves to be the matter that brings the characters to their breaking points. The final image is of David moments before he takes his life by stepping in front of a bus. All David wanted from the beginning of the mission was to bring Vogel into the light, have him be convicted publicly of the horrible war crimes he committed and to be killed by the state for his crimes. When Rachel did not give her blessings to bring Vogel forward he could not live with the guilt of knowing that Vogel will continue to live on without being punished for what he did to so many innocent people.
Otto, Comment on Muller, Ideology of The Debt
ReplyDeleteI think that overall, the film is implicit with random pieces being explicit, but only to move the story along. The entire work was always moving towards the ending, but the audience could not have predicted what was to happen, until it happened, or there was an explicit detail to make them realize certain things at certain times. For example, we think we know why David killed himself, for fear of being caught in a lie, then that changes to the idea that maybe he killed himself because Rachel would not be with him, until finally, Rachel tells Stephan that it was only because he could no longer live with the lie. Sub-plots like this are incredibly implicit and makes the audience attempt to figure out the meaning of what is going on, and how that affects the movie as a whole. The explicit parts are only there to further the story and make sure the audience is keeping up.