Review of Amrum (2025)
Seen in 2026.
12-year-old Nanning’s Nazi family has fled Hamburg to a little island off the North Frisian coast that is overflown by RAF bombers. The fascist state is losing its grip here. Nanning is bullied out of school when he’s identified as an ethnic outsider, and he’s got bigger problems than his bad Öömrang. His pregnant mother goes into labour when Hitler’s death is announced on the radio. She stops eating, saying that all food disgusts her except butter and honey on white bread.
It’s Geographies of Solitude (2022) but with a social environment that is as bleak and fluid as the physical. It’s also Hans im Glück without the Glück as poor Nanning scrabbles to barter for the ingredients to make his devout Nazi mother eat something. That narrative device is an excellent way to showcase the environment, all more realistic than The Tin Drum (1979). It’s exactly the sort of film that middle-school history teachers dream about sending their classes to see.