That's right; the exteriors for the
Napola seen in the film were shot at the Bouzov castle. (Hrad Bouzov / Burg Busau; see, for example:
Bouzov Castle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia or
Bouzov )
Agreed; a fine film which I fully recommend. I saw it at the cinema back when it came out, later bought the DVD and by now have watched it many times over.
I think it does an extremely good job of illustrating the evil seductiveness of the Nazi ideology, especially for young people.
I also admire the film's realistic, multi-faceted characterizations, brought to life by an excellent, strong cast. Hollywood fare all too often relies on clichéd, cardboard cutout characters, whereas here even the "bad guys" are believable human beings with a fleshed-out personality.
Nowhere is this more evident as in
Gauleiter Stein portrayed by veteran character actor Justus von Dohnányi (who was also great as General Burgdorf in "
Downfall" or Berus in "
The Experiment"... but I digress.) When he grew up, he never had the chance to get the kind of training and career prospects that the
Napola education now offers and he thinks that his son should be grateful for this, which he tells him in no uncertain terms. He actually believes that he does his intellectual, sensitive - or, as he would see it, "weak" - son a favor by forcing him into the
Napola; totally unable to see that he causes nothing but suffering and doom. We despise him for what he stands for and for what he does to his son, but at the same time, while we could not possibly
condone his views and actions, we can actually
understand his motivations... to a certain degree.
Those are always the greatest movie villains: The ones who fully believe that they are actually doing the right thing. It's also exactly how some of the worst figures in real life were ticking.
(Although I must say that my "favorite" character is Michael Schenk's nasty, bullying PE teacher; especially his wholly unexpected display of a sense of fairness in that "punch me in the stomach" scene, when he
doesn't come down on Friedrich like a ton of bricks like we would expect him to.)
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