Nuremberg, now directed by Russell Crowe, revisits one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century, distancing itself from the famous 1961 version starring Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich. While that classic focused on the trial of German judges, this new interpretation shifts the spotlight to the Nazi hierarchy itself, with particular attention to Hermann Goering, the highest-ranking among the 22 defendants. Hitler’s right-hand man — vain, obese and corrupt — Goering appears here as the epicenter of a disturbing psychological confrontation. (Movie distributor NOS Lusomundo Audiovisuais)
The film is structured around the successive visits of military psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, played by Rami Malek, to Goering’s cell. Determined to understand the mind of the powerful Nazi leader — addicted to opioids, a master manipulator and a consummate narcissist — Kelley seeks to decipher what is human and what is monstrous in that man who treats the courtroom as a stage for his personal propaganda. The result is a verbal duel in which every sentence is a trap and every silence, a revelation. Crowe opts for a more intimate rather than historical approach, focusing on the psychology of these encounters.
Even when confronted with irrefutable documents, Goering refuses to implicate Hitler and systematically denies the atrocities of the Holocaust. His strategy is clear: distort, relativize and perform a posture of moral superiority, turning the evaluation sessions into true exercises of symbolic power.
The psychiatrist, in turn, oscillates between scientific curiosity and ethical revulsion, questioning to what extent those men distinguished right from wrong — and whether they truly had control over their own behavior.
The film culminates with the trial that sentenced several Nazi leaders to hang. Goering, however, escapes execution by ingesting cyanide the night before — his final act of control. His ability to manipulate, seduce and distort remains intact until the end, in a final shrug that trivializes evil with chilling coldness: “we are human.”
With Nuremberg, Crowe delivers a compact, intense and unsettling portrait of the mechanics of evil and the fascination narcissistic figures exert when confronted with the truth. It is a film that shows how monstrosity can assume the guise of rationality, leaving the viewer with a disturbing question: what happens when those who commit atrocities sincerely believe they have done nothing wrong?