Udo Kier and Adolf Hitler. Clearly putting those two names together is meant to be funny, but when the idea is that Kier and Hitler could have looked alike at one time, the joke doesn’t simply fall flat, it implodes. Perhaps we should be grateful it’s the most offensive thing about My Neighbor Adolf, Leon Prudovsky’s misguided feature debut that pretty much trips itself up on every level, from script to casting to music, even to costume design. The premise is that a Polish Holocaust survivor in South America believes the nasty German man who’s moved in next door is actually the Führer; as post-Holocaust Hitler movies go, it could have been much more tasteless, but that’s not exactly a compliment. Just as much of a head-scratcher is what kind of audience this was made for, since it’s hard to imagine anyone thinking it was a good idea.
My Neighbor Adolf is getting a lot of attention on the eve of its premiere in Locarno’s Piazza Grande because a group of progressive Israeli filmmakers are finally calling out one of the film’s main funders, the government-connected Rabinovich Foundation, whose contracts apparently stipulate, as per law, that no project receiving their money can deny the “existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Let’s leave aside the incongruity of a democracy penalizing anyone for questioning their right to be called a democracy; it’s a bad look no matter how you parse it, but it’s not like My Neighbor Adolf aims for any kind of political statement. The film’s so tone-deaf it can’t even situate the bulk of the action in any geographic location more specific than “South America,” though you’d think the Colombian co-producers might have pointed out that any movie set in “Europe” would come in for justified ridicule.
It opens more unambiguously in Poland, in 1934, when the Polsky clan gather for a celebration in a house surrounded by splendid rose bushes. The setting is idyllic, the warmth genuine, but then even before the credits finish it jumps to 1960 and “South America,” where a now misanthropic Marek Polsky (David Hayman, Trial & Retribution), the sole survivor of the family, tends a black rose bush, which was his late wife’s favorite flower. One day an officious lawyer, Frau Kaltenbrunner (Olivia Silhavy), shows up asking about the rundown property next door, and although Marek tries to discourage any interest, her client moves in shortly thereafter.
Polsky would be unhappy having anyone living next to him, but Hermann Herzog (Kier) is everything he loathes: foul-tempered, secretive behind sunglasses and, worst of all, German. Marek takes an immediate antipathy towards his new neighbor, whose disposition and mannerisms start to remind him of another aggressive German, fueled by the recent kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Conviction takes hold when he sees Herzog’s eyes, which convince him this man must be Hitler. The obscenity of this notion requires an aside: from the moment Udo Kier first graced the screen in the late 1960s, his stunning eyes have been one of the glories of cinema. It boggles the mind that anyone could suggest they resemble the fascist dictator’s peepers.
Polsky decides he needs to prove that Hermann is Hitler so he puts together a sort of Hitler mood board to show all the presumed parallels to the Israeli embassy’s Intelligence Officer (Kineret Peled, whose fake accent is even worse than Hayman’s), but she’s not buying the story. Marek’s obsession gathers steam until Herzog’s noxious temperament finally cracks, and since this is meant to be a feel-good movie, the two men discover they can live side-by-side.
Prudovsky and co-writer Dmitry Malinsky seem to be pitching their humor to an older crowd, though surely even seniors don’t get much of a chuckle out of urination problems, and there’s just no point in parsing all the extratextual associations of a scene in which a kneeling Polsky weeps when Herzog proves he has two testicles. My Neighbor Adolf is a credit both Kier and Hayman can leave off their resumés, though hopefully they got a nice trip to Colombia out of it all.
The direction is lackluster – when extras cross the screen one can almost hear the call “action!” seconds before – and the color palette is muted to a soporific dullness. Even more perplexing is why Polsky’s clothes all look like they’re recycled from concentration camp uniforms, an especially irresponsible choice given that he’s a survivor with a number tattooed on his forearm. Lukasz Targosz’s intrusive music, frequently inserted over dialogue, schmaltzes things up in exactly the way one might expect.
Director: Leon Prudovsky
Screenplay: Leon Prudovsky, Dmitry Malinsky
Cast: David Hayman, Udo Kier, Olivia Silhavy, Kineret Peled, Jaime Correa, Tomasz Sobczak, Danharry Colorado Cortés, Eyvar Fardi, Dorian Alexis Zuluaga Seguro.
Producers: Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg, Stanislaw Dziedzic, Klaudia ?mieja
Co-producers: Yaki Reisner, Tsachi Cohen, Tomer Mecklberg, Diego Conejero, Juan Pablo Lasserre, Julieta Biasotti, Julio César Gaviria
Executive producers: Moshe Edery, Ygal Mograbi, Schaul Scherzer
Cinematography: Radek Ladczuk
Production designers: Juan Carlos Acevedo, Maria Camila Agudelo
Costume designer: Analia Manouelian
Editing: Hervé Schneid
Music: Lukasz Targosz
Sound: Carlos Arcila, Mateusz Adamczyk, Sebastian Witkowski
Production companies: 2-Team Productions (Israel), Film Prodkcja (Poland), Tango Films (Colombia), Vandalo (Colombia), United King Films (Israel), Reisdor Productions (Israel), in association with Human Ark
World sales: Beta Film
Venue: Locarno (International competition)
In English, German, Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish
95 minutes