14 DAY TRIAL // German director Uwe Boll has finally diverted his attention from making successful video games into less successful films, but he’s unlikely to please people with his latest choice.
Boll has upset many since he started in the movie-making business, but that’s never stopped him. Criticism on his latest film, “Auschwitz,” will probably not deter him either.
In other words, Boll is making a film on the Holocaust. Not only that, but he’s also cast himself for a part in it, as the recently released trailer reveals.
As of this moment, The Escapist says, details on the film are so scarce no one seems to know anything about it save what is shown in the trailer.
And what is shown in the trailer has extraordinary potential to be deemed offensive by many (critics and fans alike), especially given Boll’s past track record.
“To put it mildly, the director has been less than praised for his work covering videogames, so don’t expect his future film that covers one of the worst atrocities in world history to be the next Schindler’s List,” The Escapist writes.
“As evidenced by a new trailer available to the public, Uwe Boll has decided to change his focus from videogames to Auschwitz, a network of World War II Nazi concentration camps,” the same e-zine notes.
“All that’s known of the movie is what’s shown in the trailer, which looks to have a serious tone with the message of ‘Never Forget,’ though I don’t think it’s really pulling it off,” The Escapist also says.
The teaser, which is only 49 seconds long, also shows Boll as a guard at the concentration camp. Actually, it shows him leaning on the door at the gas chamber, listening to the victims’ pounding on the walls and yelling inside.
It doesn’t stop here either. The following scenes offer a hint at the kind of the atrocities in concentration camps, presented in painful details.
Boll told Kotaku that he made “Auschwitz” in a bid to show the world just what went on there, but most media outlets can’t but help wonder about how disrespectful his film will turn out to be.
“I made the movie because there is not one movie made what shows the Holocaust really was – a killing factory,” the infamous director explains.
“All the movies made showed us the special people... the heroes. But nobody has focused on the subject matter,” Boll goes on to add.
“It’s almost insane for a man to go from directing a movie about a videogame series […] to one of the most horrifying atrocities of human history. Is there any chance of this movie not being terribly disrespectful, coming from Boll?” The Escapist asks.
So far, the answer seems to be no, he can’t. ScreenCrave has the teaser trailer, but *be advised that it contains shocking, graphic images that are not safe for work or for anyone with a weak stomach.