It is August 1944. The aging Nazi Général von Choltitz (Niels Arestrup) has been posted to Paris after rising through the ranks during the war and killing thousands of Jews in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The Allies have landed on the French coast and are a couple of days away from Paris. Hitler has commanded von Choltitz to destroy the city. Bombs crash in the distance. Alone in his luxurious hotel room, von Choltitz is shocked when a man appears out of nowhere and uses a secret passage the Nazis never discovered. He is Raoul Nordling (André Dussollier), a tall, distinguished man, who has come to talk. He is the French-born Swedish consul to France. The two men spend the waning hours of the night verbally sparring as gentlemen. Von Choltitz insists that he is only following orders, but Nordling tries to convince him to reconsider them. Von Choltitz is caught between a scarred conscience that won’t die and concern for his loved ones, whom Hitler is holding hostage unless von Cholitz carries out the orders to burn Paris. Diplomacy, a fine historical drama with superb acting, especially by Dussollier, imagines what the negotiations to save Paris may have been. The film is based on the French play by Volker Schlöndorff, who also directs the film, and Cyril Gely, who adapted the script. For all the conflicts and wars going on around the globe today, World War II is never far from the artist’s imagination, nor should it be from ours. In French with English subtitles.
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