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The Waldheim Waltz(Waldheims Walzer)

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Austria

•

2018

1h 33m

Director Ruth Beckermann

Starring Kurt Waldheim

Genre Documentary

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A film that chronicles the process of uncovering former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s wartime past. It documents the swift allegations about his role during the Nazi regime during his Austrian presidential campaign, the denial by the Austrian political class, and the outbreak of anti-Semitism which finally led to his election.

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WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?

88

Slant Magazine by

Despite Beckermann’s contemplative, even-tempered tone, The Waldheim Waltz gradually builds outrage at the subterranean persistence of fascism in postwar politics.
80

The New York Times by Bilge Ebiri

Beckermann wants not so much to contextualize as to invoke — with the hope, perhaps, that placing us in the middle of this debate will create its own context.
90

Variety by Jay Weissberg

Thanks to her smart narration — clear, impassioned but never polemical — and the astute way she allows exceptional footage to play out to its full extent, The Waldheim Waltz has a sense of urgency made more pressing given political developments not just in Austria but Poland and Hungary as well.
80

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

How this all played out in terms of the Austrian election will surprise no one, but seeing how much the situation came to prefigure the contemporary house of mirrors in Europe as well as America still comes as something of a shock.
80

The New Yorker by Richard Brody

The movie is constructed entirely of a remarkable array of archival footage, including Beckermann’s recordings, that spotlights unresolved national traumas and unabated anti-Semitism.
80

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton

For all its narrow focus, this is a pleasingly personal breakdown of a fascinating episode in recent European history, tightly composed and crisply edited, with an appealing undertow of dry humor and some cautionary lessons for modern voters.