mumbai every mistake the international film festival of mumbai has made is making and will make will be forgiven for opening with hungarian maestro istvan szabos taking sides this extraordinary masterpiece has covered the festival with glory and full credit to festival director sudhir nandgaonkar and his team for securing this new film which is still to be released around the world it is always difficult to secure new good films for festivals in a country like india where there is such a minuscule market for international nonmainstream cinemataking sides explores the ethical dilemmas of an artist under nazi rule it is based on the reallife story of german conductor wilhelm furtwangler stellan skarsgaard who stayed on to conduct the berlin philharmonic during nazi rule helped a number of jews escape and was later investigated by an american denazification committee represented by maj steve arnold harvey keitelwhat is marvellous about the film is not only brilliant portrayals by the key protagonists a great screenplay and superb cinematography it is also how wonderfully the director a hungarian with his own burden of german history draws out the grey complexities of the arguments that damn and redeem furtwangler leaving you in the end to make up your own mindand damn hard it is tooyou could argue as keitel does that he collaborated with the nazi regime he was on the prussian privy council accepted nazi privileges and played athitlers birthdayor you could argue as many germans do what options does a man have who does not want to give up his motherland his family his language who defied hitler by refusing to salute him and who helped jews escapestillwhen the german assistant protests we didnt know what was happening during nazi rule keitels question then why did the jews need saving is only answered with a burning silence the film soars above the nittygritty of its arguments validating them for all people who see themselves forced to compromise in various degreesszabos characters are the epitome of clashing civilisations the uncouth uncultured gogetting american keitel calls furtwangler that band leader who cuts to the chase and demands accountability for collaborating with a mass murderer contrasted with the outrage the two german assistants feel during the investigation because a man representing their lofty musical heritage is humiliatedit is a gash in their umbilical cord to classical musicthe climax shows archival footage of furtwangler wiping his hands as if of guilt but in the final scenes as furtwangler goes down the stairs broken but not convicted the german assistant plays a record of beethoven he has conducted in silent solidarity furtwangler pauses in his tracks as the music resounds throughout the building creating one of the finest moments of cinemaas usual without wordspolish master andrzej wajdas the promised land explores compromises of a different kind taking on a large canvas it follows the dramatic fortunes of three