Vanessa Lapa – The Decent One

The year is 1929. A simple, hardworking military soldier, who wants nothing more then to serve his country, receives a promotion to commander of an elite military unit. His hard work does not go unnoticed. After several promotions, this ambitious soldier who wants to live and die protecting his country, rises to one of the highest positions in the land, and will get the chance to show the world what he’s really capable of.

This soldier is Heinrich Himmler, perhaps one of the most notorious murderers of the 20th century, instrumental in the Holocaust. The documentary is “The Decent One,” directed by Vanessa Lapa. She is known to many for her work as an Israeli journalist. Moviehole recently sat down with the award-winning filmmaker to discuss how a career in journalism influenced her filmmaking, the process of making this film, and the man it’s about.
Before you did film you were a journalist. You still are. Can you talk a little bit about how long you’ve been a journalist for, and what that journey was like for you?
I’ve been a journalist for 13 years. I started as a researcher at a weekly political program at a TV station in Israel on Channel One. Then I became a researcher at a daily news program, and then a news reporter on Channel One, and then Channel 10 in Israel. I always knew I wanted to do in-depth news stories. It was an amazing experience.
I was born and raised in Belgium, so it allowed me also to learn the Israeli society and to know the characters, and the politicians, and the decision-makers. In 2006, I opened my independent production company in Tel Aviv for documentary filmmaking.

Were you a field reporter?
Yes.

Do you think that’s a large part of you? Do you have to be in the middle of the action? Or is research a larger part [of who you are], or is it both?
I think it’s a combination of both, and it’s also a matter of age. When I was younger I felt I wanted to be part of the action. Then I realized being a news journalist doesn’t really mean being part of the action, but just reporting about it. So it’s the illusion of being part of something.
With time, and what I always felt – even when I was fueled by the adrenaline of the action – was that I liked the depth, and the content, and the research. So documentary filmmaking, it’s really combining both for me.

Can you tell me a little bit about the journey towards your film company and opening it?
It was quite spontaneous; I’ve been working for 13 years. I was working for someone and I wanted to be independent. I thought I was ready to be independent; I learned the basics. I felt that I would try it and succeed, so I tried it.

It was your company that made this film, correct?
Yes.

Do you feel that having the ability to have complete freedom over your film helped bring it together a little bit more?
Well, it is a little bit more complicated. My company produced the film, but I was desperately looking for a producer in Germany. When I realized I won’t get a producer in Germany, I was looking for a co-producer in Germany. Then I also failed until I met Felix, and I got lucky enough to have an Austrian producer.To have complete freedom is something that is amazing. There are a lot of disadvantages when you are the producer and director, because as the director I want something mainly budget wise. Because there is no producer when you’re independent, any producer that is producing together with you – from the beginning – he believes in the story and you doing it together.
The way it should be when you have a co-producer, or partner – or partners – you all agree on what you want to do, because they are also independent. The difficulty is when you are one of the producers and the filmmaker, because you have artistic dreams, [and] they cost of lot of money. You have production needs and production limits. The director has no limits, he wants something; he wants to create something. He has an idea and he wants it to happen. So when you are also the producer, it either makes the production way more expensive or it doesn’t allow the production to function. So it’s not the best idea, especially not for a project like this, and a film like this (to be directing and producing). So, I can definitely say that starting at the beginning I had hoped not to do both.The moment that Felix joined it was really a moment that would make or break. Not only because of production reasons – a lot of production reasons – but the amount of work also that is on the shoulders of one person.

How did you [and your producer Felix Breisach] meet?
Fate. One of the researchers knew Felix and he just put us in contact. The truth is, that he put us in contact by sending Felix a script of the film, and automatically Felix went to the main slot of the ORF (Austrian Broadcaster). So the first time Felix and I met was not together, but at one of those responsible for the main slot.
We were discussing the script and the main slot; because of time issues…there is no 90 minute slot, so they wanted to cut [it] short. So, we had a discussion and at the end Felix and I spoke, and I told Felix that I don’t want to cut the story in two. I thought it would be the last time that I’d see Felix. This is the truth. We split on the corner in Vienna; it was a very hot day.
Three weeks later, Felix gave me a phone call and said that he contacted the head of the documentary at the ORF, and that there is a slot of 90 minutes, and that he would like to proceed. This was a phone call I was never expecting.

What do you hope audiences will take away with them? Why make this now?
You know reflection, thinking, to be very careful when we listen to a politician giving us his political agenda. As an artist, I hope that they [the audience] will stay for a few hours with the cinematic experience.
Katrin Himmler had a very big role is this-
A very big role, in the research, in the content. She is the great niece of Heinrich Himmler. She has been a partner from day one. She transcribed the collection; she wrote a book about the collection…she was a content and research partner since day one.

The story behind obtaining the research for this was kind of an adventure and really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about that?
You know, I don’t want to disappoint you. It really wasn’t all that interesting. If it was that interesting, then this is the film I would have done. The collection was stolen in 1945, in the house of Heinrich Himmler by American soldiers. There is a gap between 1945 and 1960, [maybe the collection] exchanged hands – flea market, exchanges for money, whiskey, all those very common post war stories.
Starting in the 60’s it is under the bed of an Israeli man called Chaim Rosenthal. He kept it carefully and obsessively for 40 years, and in 2006 his son convinced him to get rid of the collection, and give it to someone who will do something important with it. The son spoke to a professor at the Tel Aviv University who knew me from the news, and gave me a phone call, and I went to see the collection. It took me a few weeks to think and I decided to pick up the challenge.

Was there any part of the process that stuck out in your mind more than the others, like a photo, or particular scene, or obtaining the voice actors?
I was about to say – you know it’s been so much – but the recording of the voice actors was definitely a highlight of the production, and of the filmmaking for so many reasons. For the fact that they were amazing actors, and it was symbolizing that we were there and that we have a film; it was the beginning of the end of the process. I was tremendously supported by Felix and by the ORF, and head of documentary, Franz Garbner. The sound designer, Tomer Eliav, was there from the beginning of the process. The editors in Tel Aviv, and Germany were recording and they were just getting, from the sound designer, the tracks and entering it on the timeline – replacing the guidelines that we had for four years. So the recording of the actors was definitely a highlight.

Why choose to do multiple voiceovers instead of one narrative voice for this film?
The choice, the major choice, was to decide not to have talking heads and interviews, to have the words of Himmler and his family be the whole story. Because they are all dead, it was obvious to me that it would need to be actors that would read, and because we have 12 characters then we need 12 actors.

This won Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Was that an award you were expecting to win, or was it a complete surprise?
I didn’t expect to win. I didn’t think during the film making of “The Decent One” about the day after. It was not something that I was thinking about. So I wanted to do something. I was passionate about it. I felt responsible, and so it was the very fact that at the end of the day we made it and we have a film, a film that is recognized as a cinema film. That is a huge honor and not something that I expected.
To participate in festivals, in the Jerusalem [Film] Festival especially is not something I had expected. To be accepted was a surprise, and to win the prize was even more of a surprise. You know people are talking, and there are reviews, and there are predictions. I didn’t expect to win. It’s very personal and it’s a psychological exercise. You tell yourself not to be excited, or disappointed.
It’s not something I expected.
When I saw the movie I was extremely uncomfortable. Not because I was looking at a man who had taken on such a large role in the destruction of so many people, but because he was painted as just a man. It was hard to watch because at times you just want to empathize with him, and at other [times] you wonder if you’re looking at evil that exists in every man. It was scary because you were painting just a man, and [to him], everything in his culture, and on his side of the world was justified. Why did you choose to paint him as a man instead of a monster?
The way you felt is such a huge compliment because it’s exactly the way we wanted to audience to feel. This was the aim, the sense of discomfort, the reflection to allow the audience to be part of.
Now painting him as a man; first of all, he is not a monster, he is a man.
I think that because I am using only his words if he comes off as being a man – a normal man that we on one hand empathize with, and on the other [are] disturbed by – it means that this is him. There is no screenplay intervention [except what’s] in his words. There is a screenplay in his words, and the words of his family and subordinates. If it came off the way it came off, it’s because – it wouldn’t have mattered what I kept in or choose to cut out, at the end of the day it’s all [virtually] the same – there is no monster. There is only a man.

Why call it “The Decent One?”
You know it is Himmler that gave me the idea of using “The Decent One,” because it’s his words that appear over 1,000 times in the research that we did – in his writing, private and public. In the film it’s used 13 times in 90 minutes, it’s his own words. It is what he believed in. For me, it just summarizes in one word who he was, the perversion, and the twisted mind of him, and the collapse of any morality.

“The Decent One” opened in New York City on October 1st , at Film Forum. For more information about the film and national release dates visit http://www.thedecentonefilm.com/#!
The film is also currently screening at the Jewish International Film Festival in Australia. More info can be found on the Facebook page of the film.