My Best Enemy

My Best Enemy

Dr. Jassim Taqui

The  Cultural Section of  the Germany Embassy has enthralled the cinema lovers by showing  the film “ My best  Enemy”. The film is a rare combination of war,  love and humor.

Austrian director Wolfgang Murnberger attempted to inject  humor,  in a strange  tale of switched identities between a Nazi and a Jew during WWII. 

Trying to be amusing and respectfully serious at the same time, the film becomes a unique combination of contrasts.

Carefree, debonair Victor (Bleibtreu) is the wealthy son of Viennese art dealers, the Kaufmanns . It’s 1938, just before Germany takes over Austria, and he’s overjoyed when his childhood chum Rudi Smekal (Friedrich), the son of the family housekeeper, returns from Germany. Little does he know that Rudi has become an S.S. officer and will soon betray the Jewish Kaufmanns.

Most people would not trust Rudi with the cookie jar, but Victor foolishly shows him a secret room where his father is hiding a rare drawing by Michelangelo, no less. Next day, the Nazis are pounding on the door to confiscate it as a present for Hitler. While the shocked Kaufmanns are escorted to a concentration camp, Rudi and his gloating cohorts make off with the drawing, or rather a forged copy of the original.

Discovering their mistake, the Nazis order Rudi to take Victor to Berlin for interrogation. But their plane is shot down by Polish partisans and, while Rudi is unconscious, Victor switches his filthy concentration camp rags for the other’s spiffy S.S. officer uniform. When the Germans show up, it’s Rudi who gets knocked around and insulted for being a wretched Jew.

The line between realism and humor is just too fine to work here. As situation comedy, Victor finding himself forced to play a Nazi, while nasty Rudi wails his innocence. However, there is a twist in the plot, giving everyone a surprise and happy ending.