In Felix Randau’s I Is Another, premiering at Locarno 79, Claes Bang plays Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler’s personal masseur, who claimed to have saved thousands of lives during the Nazi era. Set largely aboard a train to Oslo in 1952, the film follows journalist Hedda Wohmann as she challenges Kersten’s account of his past. Speaking to Rialto 5:15, Bang discusses the disputed history behind the film, his search for truth within an unreliable character, and our need to determine how others see us.
A friend of mine recently posted her holiday photos on Lake Como. Her photos were filtered, the food looked far more exotic than my dinner that evening, and each photo carried the subtext of making the best impression. But while she posted her Campari Sprtiz on the lake, she failed to declare the delayed flights, stomach flu, hangover, and fight (one of several) with her husband that trip.
And why?
Because we are inclined to present the best version of ourselves, not for posterity, but for recognition from others.
This is not a recent phenomenon. As early humans, our survival depended on belonging to a group whose members provided food, protection, and care. Validation from others is, therefore, not only the narcissist’s catnip that it appears to be, but an evolutionary inheritance.
Fishing for likes on Instagram is generally harmless, but what happens when the stories we tell about ourselves to secure recognition enter the historical record? How do we—and everyone else—begin to understand where the lines of self-invention end and the boundaries of truth begin?
Enter Felix Kersten
As Himmler’s masseur, he undoubtedly saved lives, but he is also a case study in what can happen when truth collides with our ancestral need for recognition. We can construct a narrative and identity for ourselves so engorged with our desires and ego that the truth becomes cannibalised by the creature we create.
Kersten is therefore not a fascinating subject simply because he may have lied. We all lie to varying degrees each day, and nobody is making films about us. What makes him interesting is that his ‘lies’ illuminate the emotional need he had for history to recognise a particular version of him.
A Train to Oslo
That version of himself is at the crux of the film as it moves between the Nazi era and autumn 1952, when Hedda Wohmann confronts Kersten on a train to Oslo. The setting on a train is sublime. Were it not for the historical figures, we might consider it a hallmark of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. Ploughing towards Oslo, the nighttime darkness engulfs the train and acts as concealment for the secrets that unfold there. Documents in suitcases, chance encounters in corridors and cramped compartments that force awkward physical proximity all present the motifs of Christie. The compartments where the drama unfolds can be viewed as the literal compartmentalisation that psychotherapists talk about. The choice of setting and the beauty of its metaphor combine to create a psychiatrist’s Christmas morning.
Hedda initially appears to occupy the position of eager sleuth or moral examiner, but as the encounter develops, her own wartime history is exposed. This renders Hedda less of a morally neutral figure whom the audience can regard as a reliable narrator and forces the audience to understand that they are alone in determining the truth about Kersten. As Bang explains;
“Hedda is also trying to survive, and she also played a part. Even if you just lived there, even just trying to survive it, even if you had nothing to do with it, you were caught up in it. Everybody just tried to fucking survive. How the fuck do you go about it when something like this is put upon you? This is all of a sudden a reality you live in. You can’t escape it. So what do you do to survive here? Hedda and I can definitely agree that we’re both liars. We both tried, somehow, to make the image of ourselves. If we’ve not spoken about it, we’ve at least been silent about the parts of our lives that we don’t want to come out. I think it’s quite human. We all want to present ourselves in the best possible way.”
Survival is as ancestral as validation, and our actions are often shaped more by the choices available to us and less for optimal morality. As the film progresses and the train moves through the night, the audience considers what choices were available to Kersten as he lived through the events he would later recount.
The Things We Do To Survive
Hindsight is a gift that can only be unwrapped after the event. Kersten had no such gift, and Bang is careful to avoid passing judgement on him without first considering the circumstances:
“What would we do? What would we do in 1939? What would you do if you got a call to meet Himmler in the SS headquarters, and you know that there will be severe repercussions for you and your family if you don’t? What do you do once you’re caught up in the whole thing? There’s nothing to suggest that this guy had anything to do with the Nazis before that. He was not a member of the party before that. He was, I think, trying to survive. I don’t think any of us would be able to know how we would react in a situation like that. I don’t know what I would say or do if I were summoned to meet Heinrich Himmler and told that I was going to work for him for the next five years.”
Bang presents survival not as an excuse for deception or exaggeration, but as an additional lens through which to view the film. Hedda’s history, which Kersten exposes, also highlights that, in extreme circumstances, we may be forced into choices and actions so complex that they resist the black-and-white thinking applicable to simpler choices. There is no grey area in choosing what you will eat for dinner this evening. It is a simple choice. But surviving the Holocaust creates different moral gradations that cannot be reduced to chicken or beef.
“Because the circumstances were so severe, and so mad, it’s almost like everybody that lived through those days and those years—everybody’s story deserves to be told. Everybody has a very different story. When you’re put in circumstances that severe and that crazy, everybody’s story actually becomes quite interesting, because it becomes quite interesting how you deal with it. How do you go about it? How do you navigate this circumstance that is now your world, your reality?”
The Numbers Game and Impossible Calculations
The film, as many people, accept that Kersten saved lives. The ambiguity is introduced in the validity of his claims of how many. The final number is disputed yet Kersten claimed thousands. It is this ambiguity which propels the film towards Oslo. Bang explains:
“There’s no doubt that he did actually manage to help people. There were people that escaped Nazi Germany because of him. The question is, how many? We don’t, to this day, know the exact number, and is that even important? If his decision was to say, Well, I cannot say no to the Nazi Party, I have to go there, and now I’m part of this. What can I actually do to turn this into a good situation? And then he decides to try and influence it, and he tries to help people—what’s the number that would justify him being part of it? That is a question that can never be answered. If he saved one life, would that justify it? Or is it ten, or is it one hundred thousand?”
Those questions introduce ambiguity’s cousin: complexity. While a definitive number could settle the historical record, it would not answer the moral questions: How much is enough? Why did he lie? Was he acting out of fear? Is complicity with evil morally acceptable if it is a means to an end that saves lives? Ultimately, the numbers game can tell us how many, but complexity leaves us with an impossible calculation.
Regardless of the final number, Bang is more interested in why Kersten’s knowledge that he had saved even one life was not enough for him. The answer was written into us millennia ago.
Am I Invisible?
Bang discusses our human need for validation:
“We all want to present ourselves in the best possible way. We all have this need and this desire to be recognised for the person that we are. We all like the validation of our employer saying, ‘Hey, good job.’ Perhaps even more importantly, we all support ourselves on the love and the validation that we get from our dear ones. We also have to understand that we’re social creatures. If there’s no recognition, if there’s no validation of you or I being here—I’m not talking about people applauding a play or something—just the fact that you are, that it is recognised that you’re in the room. The love that you put into your family—if that love is not on some level returned, you will feel strange. That’s just the validation of us as humans. Seeking that kind of approval, recognition or validation is also something that is very human.”
It is Kersten’s need for validation and recognition at the highest level that becomes the primal drive of this story.
“If he had not tried to seek validation for his actions, we would not have had this story. We would probably never have heard about it. But it was not enough for him. It was not enough for him just to know in his heart that his way of being involved with Himmler, trying to influence it, had actually managed to save lives. If he’d just known in his heart, ‘I have made a difference,’ then there would have been no story. Because he seeks the validation or the appreciation—and ultimately wants the validation that the Nobel Peace Prize is—that is why we have the story today. Do you need that validation? What makes you want validation?”
We can understand Kersten as acting from a primal need for validation and recognition. But, as Bang states, it was not enough. In reaching for more and “taking it too far”, Kersten compromised the authenticity of his own account, introducing ambiguity and poisoning the well of historical truth. In doing so, he inadvertently supplants his desired recognition with complexity.
Enter Claes Bang
Kersten’s complexity is captured by Claes Bang. As an actor, he has built a body of work playing layered characters who often raise more questions than they answer. He does not actively seek these roles out but is attracted by conflicted characters:
“When something like that lands on my table, I’m like, ‘Whoa, this is super interesting.’ There’s so much, also with this guy, because he’s so complex and so conflicted. It’s always quite interesting when a person has a very different perception of who that guy is, and then what we see on the screen is something else. There’s a lot to play. It leaves a lot of room for the spectator to be like, ‘Whoa, wait a second. What’s this?’ The characters are not to be taken at face value. It sort of slips through my fingers, like sand.”
It would be reductive and remiss to suggest that Bang only plays villains. Rather, he plays characters with a clear distance between who they are, who they think they are and who the audience think they are.
Like Kersten, Bang’s complexity exists alongside the idea of authenticty. As an actor he prepares throughly but does not believe in fixing a character in advance:
“I do that prep, and then get myself in a position where I can be open to whatever happens on the day. The prep is not something that will set anything in stone. It will only open up the playground. I always try to look for something in there that I can relate to, that resonates with me. I feel that is the way I can embody it. I always look for something that is a positive driving force that I can relate to.”
The Active Audience
While Bang’s performance is central to the film, the audience is also instrumental in constructing its meaning. That participation helps distinguish art from entertainment which asks the audience to remain passive and simply allows the film to happen to them. By requiring an active audience, I Is Another moves beyond a passive popcorn experience and towards an artistic one.
“We absolutely invite you to come and play a part in this. There’ll be a lot of different versions of what you connect with. Take whatever resonates with you. I’ve had my say when I’ve made the movie. I don’t get to tell people how to watch it.”
The active audience is essential to a film in which truth is debatable, narrators are unreliable, motives complex and authenticity questionable. Like an incomplete circuit, the film requires the viewer to make the final connection and light the bulb.
Final Stop
Kersten wanted to control how history would remember him. Through a natural need for validation and recognition, he allowed that desire to metastasise. Like the Campari on Lake Como, we have a human need to present ourselves selectively in the best possible light and self-presentation can omit the uglier sides of reality and distort an impression without inventing anything. In Kersten’s case, however, self-presentation metastasised into self-invention. In trying to secure control of his legacy, he ultimately surrendered it to us: an audience that can purchase a ticket but is under no obligation to purchase his version of events. Rather than hailing him as a Holocaust hero, I Is Another gathers the ambiguity and complexity of his story and invites us to determine what it means.
Ich ist ein Anderer (I is Another) premieres at Locarno 79