海角大神

'The German Doctor' is underplayed, which makes it even scarier

'Doctor' follows a doctor calling himself Helmut Gregor living in a South American village who, the audience discovers, is actually notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.

It鈥檚 appropriate that 鈥淭he German Doctor,鈥� set in Patagonia in 1960, resembles a monster movie even though we encounter no ghouls or goblins. The monsters here are strictly of the human variety. Based on a novel by the film鈥檚 writer-director, Luc铆a Puenzo, the film is a fictional imagining of how a German doctor, calling himself Helmut Gregor (脌lex Brendem眉hl), insinuates himself into the South American village where he has taken up residence. As becomes clear all too soon, the good doctor is Josef Mengele, the notorious perpetrator of hideous human experiments at Auschwitz.

The village is peopled with blond, German-speaking residents; a local school has photos of alumni beside a Nazi flag; and mysterious hydroplanes are constantly landing and taking off from a nearby lake. The spacious hotel housing Mengele is run by Eva (Natalia Oreiro) and Enzo (Diego Peretti), whose 12-year-daughter, Lilith (Florencia Bado), is unusually diminutive for her age 鈥� a source of fascination for Mengele, who convinces her reluctant parents to submit to 鈥済enetic research,鈥� developed in his home-grown lab, to grow her bones.

Since the real-life Mengele, who fled to South America along with numerous other Nazi war criminals, was obsessed with eugenics, it makes sense that the Mengele of this film would be fixated on Lilith, whom he deems a 鈥減erfect specimen.鈥� Because Lilith is constantly taunted by her schoolmates, she is flattered and excited by Mengele鈥檚 promise to make her grow. Only Enzo seems suspicious of Mengele almost from the start. His growing horror at what is slowly unwinding matches our own, especially when Eva becomes pregnant with twins. Twins were another Mengele fixation.

For people whose movie memories of Mengele conjure up Gregory Peck in 鈥淭he Boys From Brazil,鈥� 鈥淭he German Doctor鈥� will probably seem old-fashioned and underplayed. Puenzo doesn鈥檛 allow her actors, most notably Brendem眉hl, to go all histrionic on us 鈥� which, of course, makes everything seem even scarier.

Within its straightforward limits, 鈥淭he German Doctor鈥� is highly effective, but it doesn鈥檛 stray beyond those confines. It doesn鈥檛 do more than sketch the network of collaborators and criminals in this creepy community or delve more than superficially into Mengele鈥檚 life history. That the film doesn鈥檛 attempt to provide a psychological analysis of him I find commendable. Some monsters, at least in the movies, are beyond analysis.

Puenzo may have started out to make something more ambitious than an intelligent, real-world horror thriller, but what she did achieve is still commendable. The melodramatics in this movie may be cooked up, but the fears it conjures are very real. Grade: B+ (Rated PG-13 for thematic material and brief nudity.)