Patrons wandering into The Good German unprepared might be taken aback, thinking that they had come into a retrospective of Hollywood 40s films by mistake.  They would see the standard box size screen, black and white photography, hear a swelling Warner Bros old time score and notice the costumes and hair styles of the period.

But, that is what director Steven Soderbergh intended.  The word that so many critics decided to use is ‘pastiche’. 

The Good German is a pastiche of the style and post-war themes of such films as Casablanca, The Third Man and Notorious (two of which starred Ingrid Bergman).  It even has a Casablanca ending – which is definitely not the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So much comment has been given to the style of the film – and so high are the reputations of the films that have served as inspiration that critics spend a lot of time regretting how this one is not as good as the old classics.  (Would they have recognised them as classics at the time or given them a few thumbs down?)

This means that not enough attention is given to the themes of the film.  Sixty years after the end of World War II and a history of the more noble stories that emerged from the war, some of the darker stories of victory and occupation now emerge.  It is interesting to note that Robert de Niro’s The Good Shepherd appeared very recently with some explorations of and ugly stories of war espionage and the establishing of the CIA.

The Good German provides a complex plot based on the fact that men and women who have survived a war can be mistrustful and likely to lie in most of their responses simply to protect themselves.  The setting of the film is Berlin just after the May German surrender until the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945.  The occasion is the Potsdam conference where Truman, Churchill and Stalin met to decide the fate of post-war Germany, of divided post-war Berlin, and the Eastern European countries.

George Clooney, in a rather laidback performance, is a journalist who had spent time inBerlin before the outbreak of war.  Toby Maguire, in a rather brief role, plays a frighteningly callous young GI who tells us that the war has been great for him.  Maybe a nice young man back home, in Berlin he is revelling in the black market profits where, as he says, having money can enable you to be your real self.  But, he is naively self-confident and no match for the intrigues of both the Americans and the Russians.

A sudden thought at this point in the film is wondering what is happening now in Iraq, who is doing the wheeling and dealing in plans and contracts for reconstruction, in black market activities.  If then, why not now?  A sobering distraction from the events of 1945.

The other central character is, as in each film noir of the mid-40s, the femme fatale.  She is the woman of mystery who obscures the truth, tempts men only to destroy them.  This time it is Cate Blanchett in yet another very different role.  She is an actress who immerses herself, appearance, accent, look to play convincingly a London teacher or a reformed Sydney drug addict – or Queen Elizabeth – and always be convincing.

Here she is the wife of an SS officer who is linked with a notorious concentration camp which exploited prisoners in labour for the development of rockets and nuclear bombs. 

History reminds us that both Americans and Russians were desperate to get hold of these scientists to compete in the Cold War arms race.

Director Steven Soderbergh admires the classic styles and themes of the past.  While his film might be a cinematic experiment, it offers war themes and deceits to be pondered.

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