Denial

Having marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz last week, I chose this film to watch with a group of friends form church. Like flat earthers, it's difficult to accept that there are some who deny that the Holocaust actually took place. Why? What is their motivation? What do they hope to achieve by setting themselves against nearly everyone else and an entire people?

Based on true events, this film explores a libel court case at the High Court in London when 'historian' David Irving (Timothy Spall) challenges what he claims is defamation of professional and personal character in a book written by American College Professor Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz). The quirkiness of British law means that in a libel case the burden of proof lies with the  accused who has to prove the accuser is indeed a liar and selective rewriter of history to suit his own ideology.

Whilst the film is most certainly set within the context of the horrors of the Holocaust and especially the things that went on at Auschwitz, it is fundamentally a courtroom drama which centres on the ingenuity of Lipstadt's legal team of lawyer Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) backed by a team of researchers. They plan to entrap Irving, who mounts his own prosecution, by appealing to his overdeveloped ego to try the case before a Judge without a jury as the technicalities of the case would be too intricate for laymen to grasp. Technicalities that Irving has spent his life mastering. Irving agrees. Lipstadt's team feel Irving would play to a jury and win them over.

Whilst the Jewish community in America is quick to offer financial support to enable the trial to proceed, British Jews try to persuade Lipstadt to drop the case and settle out of court as it will give publicity to Irving. Lipstadt is incensed that neither she nor any Holocaust survivors will be called to testify by her team. Her team have seen Irving tear such people apart and do not wish to give his cause oxygen. Instead, they concentrate on the forensic details of establishing that Irving changed his views and rewrote history to support what is presented as his own right ring, racist and anti-semitic ideology.

The story behind this film presents two opposing histories - one from a revisionist perspective of Hitler and one from the perspective of the Holocaust. They are incompatible and it falls to a Judge to rule which is truthful. Holocaust survivors are in court each day and pressurise Lipstadt to have their voice heard. She deflects the pressure by saying that she will ensure the voice of suffering is heard. Lipstadt makes repeated demands to be heard as a witness along with survivors - so much so that in the film her character becomes too whining and more than a little tedious.

Lipstadt undergoes an epiphany when she realises that the real denial here is the denial of the survivors to be heard and her own greater self-denial of not having a public voice while the trial is underway. She eventually places her trust in her legal team and the roller coaster proceeds much like a Heavyweight bout as two pugilists slog it out with the judges seemingly scoring each successive rounds first to Irving and then to Rampton. The outcome is unclear from the Judges 300 page written basis for his Judgment, the tension builds as the Judgment is given and he finds in favour of Lipstadt and in doing so, voice is given to the suffering that was endured and which continues.

We know the outcome as it is based on a real life story. What makes this film of interest is the characters and the methods they employ to achieve their intended aim. The acting is strong (even if Lipstadt is whiny) and the scenes filmed when the defence team visit Auschwitz on a foggy and frosty day add to the bleakness of the memorial and ramp up the pressure for Irving to be defeated. This is an interesting film, well made. To watch this alongside The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and God on Trial would make for a heavy but engaging triple bill. I'll give this film 7/10.