Filming started on a tongue-in-cheek biopic of Adolf Hitler in Vienna on Tuesday, which producers say will be a “timeless parable” of the struggle between good and evil.
The film, “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), is based on a play of the same name by the late Hungarian-Jewish playwright George Tabori and will premiere in Germany next year.
Rather than trying to present a historically accurate version of Hitler’s early life in Austria, the film, directed by Sweden’s Urs Odermatt, mixes reality and fiction with a hefty dose of irony.
“All this will be blended with a psychological profile of a future tyrant,” the producers said in a statement.
In the script, a fresh-faced Hitler played by German actor Tom Schilling arrives in Vienna with dreams of becoming a great artist. The true Hitler had ambitions to become an architect.
Short of money, he shares a room with two Jewish men, Lobkowitz, a failed cook, and a bookseller named Herzl, who takes the young Hitler under his wing.
![A.Hitler: Rally on the Heldenplatz [Hero’s Square] in Vienna…](https://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/hitlervienna.jpg "A.Hitler: Rally on the Heldenplatz [Hero’s Square] in Vienna…")
Although the movie shares the name of Hitler’s long, partially autobiographical book, in which he presents the Nazi ideology, his anti-Semitism and views on the Aryan “master race,” the choice of title is meant as a subversive joke.
In the film, it is actually Hitler’s Jewish roommate Herzl, played by German actor Goetz George, who is writing a book which he eventually decides to call “Mein Kampf.”
The ground-breaking Tabori play was first shown in Vienna in 1987 and encouraged audiences to face a painful national past through comedy.
Tabori, whose father was killed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, also directed and acted in the play, which became one of his most celebrated works.
German and Austrian-made comedies about Hitler have been rare, with directors preferring to focus on serious, realistic presentations such as Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 film ‘Der Untergang’ (Downfall).
A 2007 German Hitler parody, ‘Mein Fuehrer — The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler‘ sparked controversy and scathing reviews in Germany after portraying the dictator as a bed wetter with erectile problems.
Filming of “Mein Kampf” will move on to Germany in May.
