Renaudin, The Debt

The Debt is the powerful story of Rachel Singer, a former Israeli Mossad agent who endeavored to capture and bring to trial a notorious Nazi war criminal, Dr. Vogel AKA the Surgeon of Birkenau, in a secret Israeli mission that ended with his death on the streets of East Berlin. Thirty years later, a man claiming to be the doctor has surfaced, and Rachel must go back to Eastern Europe to uncover the truth. Overwhelmed by haunting memories of her younger self, the celebrated heroine must relive the trauma of those events and confront the debt she has incurred. Much like in the film In a Better World, justice and revenge along with morality and politics are pitted against one another as Singer carries on with her mission. The characters have transformed morally and spiritually since the 1960's. The Debt takes us into a conspiracy theory of sorts where politically driven motives and deception rule.

This film persuades as well as entertains and is explicitly ideological. The entire motivation of the mission of the characters is justice for Jews for the deeds carried out by Dr. Vogel. However the emphasis is placed on the characters struggle with the mission that they must accomplish on behalf of their people. A similar struggle is seen in a similar film, Munich, the story behind Israel's response to the massacre of Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group during the 1972 Summer Olympics. In both films, the characters clearly portray the way that they feel. They do not reflect any reward for any of the characters the movie does not attempt any issues and also does not delve into the morality and ideology of the Holocaust. The Debt merely represents and portrays the characters and their actions.