The Keep
1983
D: Michael Mann
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Being a fan of Michael Mann, I was definitely intrigued by the idea of his making fantasy/horror epic, especially one taking place during World War II. The Keep lives up to the stylistic expections, but it suffers from a studio butchery that removed much of the story. It ranks pretty highly among movies with hidden director’s cuts that desperately needs to see the light.
Based on the book by F. Paul Wilson, the movie takes place in a village in German occupied Romania as a Wehrmacht unit commanded by Captain Klaus Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow) adjusts to new management under an SS force led by the villainous Erich Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne). Like most normal Germans, Woermann and Co. are not too keen on entertaining these infamous busybodies, and, sure enough, Kaempffer makes a complete ass of himself by ordering the execution of a few local civilians to prove a point.
The local priest (Robert Prosky) convinces them to retrieve crippled Jewish historian Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) from a concentration camp in order to translate the runes on a massive ancient structure by the village. Soon after setting up camp inside the citadel, two German soldiers (John Vine and Jona Jones) inadvertently free an evil entity named Radu Molasar (Michael Carter), who begins to regenerate by slaughtering soldiers one by one. At first, he seems like a stand-up guy, killing Nazis, saving Eva from rape, and curing Theodore of his disability, but he has ulterior motives. His plan is to use Theodore to obtain a talisman so that he can escape the Keep and unleash unimaginable terror onto the world.
This causes our hero Glaeken (Scott Glenn) to sense trouble and sail to the area to defeat Molasar using a magic scepter of strangely minimalist design. Being the focused type, he wastes no time in having creepy, passionless sex with Eva (Keep in mind, this was the 20th Century and people could not conceive of simply not having gratuitous sex scenes in movies. Disney animated movies were excepted, but it’s likely there was discussion on that). He then defeats Molasar with said scepter, but not before Kaempffer kills Klaus and Cuza rejects Molasar.
It’s become a tiresome cliché to cite Blazing Saddles as a movie that could not be made today for ideological reasons, but The Keep is definitely a great candidate for such status. While Molasar initially appears to be a righteous hunter of Nazis, he intentionally exploits this angle as a pretext for manipulating others into allowing his to begin his own reign of terror, and it’s pretty obvious how this can be applied to current political trends. The Keep preemptively subverts and deconstructs the Reddit Carnage seen increasingly unserious movies about World War II consumed by people who would call you a Nazi for something as innocuous as your favorite car color. Moreover, the movie draws a clear distinction between the Nazis and other contemporary Germans (Kaempffer and Klaus have debates on the subject), a decision that is poisonous to progressive revisionism.
Of course, this not a completely fair comparison. Antifa would never save a woman from getting raped.
The movie is less theologically sound. Fighting sorcery with sorcery can be fine in a fantasy, but The Keep unfortunately adds the context of Christianity’s being useless. Despite being a good man, the priest is spiritually vulnerable to Molasar’s power and rendered temporarily insane simply by being in the same vicinity as the fiend. This also cheapens the moment in which Kaempffer makes a last-ditch effort to ward off Molasar with a crucifix despite his malice and faithlessness. There might be a regrettable appeal here for the narcissistic sideshow that is right-wing paganism that is reinforced by the aforementioned loveless sex scene. Then again, that may be confounded because it involves a Jewish person.
The movie’s greatest problem is the studio-mandated cut from 3 hours to 1.5. The Keep is an easy watch because of how short it is, but I was definitely ready for a slow burn. What’s more is that the Glaeken, whom I assume most of the cut material is about, is described as a pensive hero who struggles with his destined role as such. In other words, he is the exact type of protagonist that Michael Mann is good at depicting. This problem comes to head in the third act in which he ends up at the bottom of a ravine while the clock is ticking, and the movie feels it necessary to take the time to show how much he struggles to climb back up. Without the characterization to provide context for empathy, there is no aesthetic justification for this moment; it’s nothing more than just tedious faux-suspense. It’s rather clueless to cut out all of a hero’s characterization and then include a climactic payoff that’s completely dependent upon it. There might have been some actual romance between him and Eva to lead up the aforementioned creepy sex scene for all I know. Klaus is the closest thing the movie has to a relatable protagonist, and Cuza is somewhat sympathetic despite his screw-ups.
From a visual standpoint, the movie does not disappoint. Mann’s usual atmosphere is facilitated by Alex Thomson’s cinematography and Tangerine Dreams’ score. Molasar himself is a great character design as he develops from a skeletal horror to a stone-faced demon. The red glow coming from his eyes is a nice touch, but it seems that the proportions on the suit put Michael Carter’s head in the neck area despite his height. Unfortunately F. Paul Wilson apparently doesn’t know an awesome character design when he sees one and complained about, and from what I gather the faithful version resembles Snape from Harry Potter. I haven’t read this book series, but Molasar’s design makes sense in the movie because it is a plot point that he gets mistaken for a golem.
You’d think that if we could get director’s cut released of a Zack Snyder movie, surely we could have a successful campaign for someone like Michael Mann. Then again perhaps that’s the opposite of how it works. Maybe people with good taste cannot muster the hive-mind mobilization required for such an undertaking. Either, way it doesn’t look as if will ever happen.
The movie also stars W. Morgan Sheppard, Wolf Kahler, and Bruce Payne.
QUOTES
MOLASAR: You have…death around you.
CUZA: Your hands!
MOLASAR: No.
CUZA: Then what you sense is my fate in a death camp.
MOLASAR: A place where people gather to die?
CUZA: A place where people are murdered.
MOLASAR: My people are murdered?
CUZA: Yes! And others, from all over Europe!
MOLASAR: Who does this?
CUZA: Their leader, in Berlin, and the soldiers in black.
MOLASAR: I will destroy them! …I will…consume their lives.
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