The Tattooist of Auschwitz: Review
By Sioph W. Leal
The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a fictionalised take on the real-life recollections of Lale (Jonah Hauer-King), a Slovakian Jew deported to Auschwitz in 1942, the concentration camp where over a million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Shortly after arriving, he is made into a tattooist, charged with inking identification numbers onto fellow prisoners’ arms. It keeps him one step away from death, grants him privileges, and it is where he meets Gita (Anna Próchniak) and instantly falls in love. Now in his 80s, Lale meets with aspiring writer Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey) after losing his wife to recount his past and confront the ghosts of his past—sometimes literally. He makes it clear from the beginning: It is a story of love and hope in the darkest times.
Given that Lale is the central character and his relationships form the story over the horrific setting, there is an expectation that the complicated nature of the bonds he forms (good and bad) will give the story its emotional heart, but the reality is a watered-down and never fully explored story that glosses over the horrors and leaves you with a detached feeling for the main character despite it being his story. Before Lale meets the love of his life, he first meets Pepan (Adam Karst), a tattooist who takes him under his wing for no reason other than he sees something special in Lale that we never see nor is it ever explained. It promises to show the tutelage of how to survive the camp given the complicated nature of working for the camp, but like many of the relationships, it fades to nothing with no impact on Lale other than getting him the job. The same is said when Lale takes on an apprentice to save his life, Leon (Phénix Brossard). While he does have more interaction with Leon, the relationship and bond the two share fall incredibly flat, and at one point, it seems as if Lale in the 1940s forgot about him until their last day in the camp. It's a shame because Leon’s inclusion starts off well, making him a more involved character who finally looks out for someone other than himself and uses his position to save someone not connected to him. A lot of this seemingly appears to be Lale coming across as uncaring to the struggles of others unless he is directly involved or they aid him in some way or another. Even the relationship between older Lale and Heather has little time shown, making it another underdeveloped relationship that could have used more screen time to develop their relationship given that he trusts her with his story and the actions of his past that he is ashamed of. It makes the ending feel empty. At times, it seems Heather is both overwhelmed and annoyed with Lale and his constant calls and the pressure of the story, but while we are shown that, it's rushed and there’s no feeling to it.
Through his complex relationship with Nazi SS Officer Stefan Baretzki, who oversees Lale in the camp, we get one of the most interesting parts of the story. Baretzki looks out for Lale as if he were his brother, but with the cruelty of the time and by playing sadistic games with him and the other prisoners. Lale gives him relationship advice, and on one memorable occasion, they hold each other in their arms in an act of reassurance and comfort that contrasts with the horrors of the camp. Baretzki even helps Lale and Gita meet, encouraging their relationship and covering for Lale.
With Gita, Lale falls in love the instant he sees her and begins her tattoo. Unfortunately, that’s it. Their relationship starts as a simple love at first sight that does not grow or deepen over time. It is implied that their love gives hope to them and the other prisoners over exploring the horrors of the camp, with a comment at the end of the series about how they lived all their worst days; the best are in front of them. It's almost as if the suffering and the horrors of the camp are forgotten for a quick romance story that lacks this love-at-first-sight chemistry.
While the love story sometimes comes across as an afterthought and the relationship is underdeveloped, Gita’s arc outside of Lale is the strength of the series. She carries hope with her that she and Lale can be together, but she never compromises her good nature, despite the risks being far greater for her without the protection of the tattooist job. In one incredibly emotional scene, Gita goes above and beyond to protect a pregnant prisoner and helps conceal their pregnancy. It’s a risk that could result in her death, but she puts that aside to help. Lale never does that and inflicts pain on others at the behest of the officers to ensure Gita’s safety.
There is a moment in the final episode where we see the most striking difference in Lale and Gita’s stories. He easily escapes to a warm and open wood, while Gita sees her friends die as they march to another camp, witnesses her friends’ sexual assault, and faces harsh winter weather. It’s a harsh contrast, and it is only in Gita’s story do we see and feel the terrors of the camp, and outside of it, that gives a much-needed weight to the story that lacks in Lale’s perspective. Outside of Baretzki, there is no complexity to Lale as there is to Gita, or, to be frank, anything compelling or likeable. He walks out of the camp with ease, acts as a pimp for Russian officers (but he didn’t see anything, so he’s exempt from the abuse the women he recruits face), and seems unattached to the suffering of others as long as he survives. While that could be the complexity the series desperately needs, it is not executed well.
Narratively, the series is weak, but there are some choices in the older Lale scenes that make for an excellent artistic choice that, unfortunately, fade away. As Lale recounts his stories to Heather, he is confronted by physical manifestations of his ghosts that expose his guilt and shame for his actions. They are fellow prisoners who call him out for lying about what happened, or Baretzki, reminding him of his privilege in the camp. It forces him to recount what really happened and what other prisoners thought of him. They did not think of him as a source of hope with his love for Gita; they saw him as a “Nazi dog” working for the people, torturing and killing people like him and informing him of the people sent to the chamber in his place. That style of narration is a strength of the series that it does not use often but could have created the intricacy and complexity the story needs.
Like the story, the performances come off as stiff or with the same blank expression from an otherwise talented cast. The impressive score by Hans Zimmer does its best to salvage any emotion from the story and performance, but there just needs to be more from both performances and story.
The oversimplification narrows the reality of Auschwitz with flat expressions from many of the characters, and a detached lead that skates over the terrors of the camp creates a hollow series for what could have been a complex story of a Jewish man forced to navigate horrors to survive and find love. There was so much potential with this story, from complex characters to moral ambiguities and striking images to use, but there is no urgency to the story and what seems to be little understanding of the time. It feels like a shallow love story with a torturous background to give the love a new twist that makes for a hollow, underutilised take. Considering it is a fictionalised take of the most famous and deadly concentration camps in the Holocaust and one man's recollections, the main character gives little impact and no emotion and comes across as a detriment to his own story.
The Tattooist Of Auschwitz will release on Thursday, May 2nd.