Film Review: Denial (2016)
Democracy is, as many only realised in 2016, a civilisational achievement that is much easier to appreciate in theory than in practice. Much the same can be said for freedom of speech, whose value seems self-evident only when that speech is of the sort that doesn’t require us to unfriend hundreds or thousands of people on Facebook en masse. It is far harder to raise a thumb for free speech when it includes the freedom to say things that might turn one’s stomach. And few things provoke such an effect, in these parts over the last decades, as the fashionable historical revisionism, or rather the efforts to portray various individuals, movements, and ideologies who came up short in the Second World War as the good guys.
On a global scale, such efforts are usually tied to the practice of Holocaust denial. No figure associated with this phenomenon is as well-known as David Irving, a British historian who even gained a certain reputation in the 1970s with books that attempted to portray how the Nazis viewed the Second World War, but later came to adopt the Nazi perspective himself, seeking to justify the Nazis by claiming that the worst crime ascribed to them – the extermination of European Jews – never happened at all. As the world’s most famous Holocaust denier, Irving eventually became the subject of controversies that would escalate in the 1990s into a spectacular court case, reconstructed in 2016 in the feature film Denial. The screenplay, written by British playwright David Hare, is based on the book by American historian Deborah Lipstadt (played by Rachel Weisz), a Holocaust specialist who, in her own works, railed against Holocaust deniers, including, of course, Irving.
The story begins in 1994 when Irving (played by Timothy Spall) challenges her to a debate during one of his lectures, which Lipstadt refuses. Irving, however, decides to fight on regardless and files a libel suit against Lipstadt and her British publishers in an English court. The choice of venue is no accident, because English law, unlike American law, places the burden of proof in libel cases on the defendant, not the plaintiff. This means Lipstadt is forced to prove her claims that Irving knowingly denied the Holocaust, or, indirectly, to prove in court that the Holocaust did indeed happen.
At the trial, which would turn into a major media event and cost millions of pounds, Lipstadt is represented by a legal superteam consisting of Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), former solicitor for Princess Diana, and the seasoned barrister Richard Rampton (played by Tom Wilkinson). Denial was directed by Mick Jackson, a British director best known for the hit film The Bodyguard starring Kevin Costner, but who also has TV films based on real court cases in his filmography. This film could even be called the most ambitious of his career, given that it tackles some genuinely important and universally relevant themes, such as confronting the past, the manipulation of history, and even freedom of speech, which – thanks to laws rarely mentioned in public – can be called into question even in the centuries-old democracy of Great Britain.
The problem, however, is that the Irving vs. Penguin Books Ltd. case is rather difficult to turn into an exciting, dramatic film, or at least a production that doesn’t look like too obvious an attempt to squeeze out another Oscar or two on the back of the Holocaust. It’s hard to create drama when the outcome of the dispute, if not already known to the audience, is at least far more predictable than, for example, the Brexit referendum. When it comes to matters like the Holocaust and its denial, it’s also quite hard to avoid a black-and-white division, so Irving simply must be portrayed not just as a villain but as a grotesque, Hitler-like figure played by an almost caricatural Timothy Spall. In contrast, Lipstadt is portrayed as a passionate heroine, a fighter for truth and justice, played with great energy by Rachel Weisz, or, to be precise, trying to play her, given that Hare, in line with real events, reduced her to second fiddle, leaving the job of taking Irving apart in court to the legal professionals.
Here Hare creates the only somewhat coherent dramatic conflict, pitting the emotional Lipstadt, who insists on Holocaust survivors being brought to court as witnesses, against the experts who ultimately succeed in convincing her it’s not the best idea. Tom Wilkinson as the barrister, who, despite his seemingly emotionless strategy, hides deep humanity within, is the best member of the cast, and the courtroom scenes, where he deconstructs Irving and his lies into their basic facts, are the best part of the film.
Unfortunately, they are all too short, and Hare and Jackson try to obscure the spectacular yet predictable outcome of the case by creating a false, unconvincing tension just before the end. Thus, Denial ends as a production whose good intentions cannot be denied, but which simply fails to rise above a historical lesson that, unfortunately, the audience appears unlikely to learn.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version was posted here.)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo
LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9