Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. If you are vaguely familiar with the phrase 'banality of evil' but are not sure of its source, this film will be enlightening. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), German-Jewish Doctor of Philosophy and considered one of the most brilliant women in her field, fled Hitler's Germany in 1933 at the age of twenty-seven ultimately setting up camp in the USA. Dr. Arendt became better known to the public when, now middle-aged, she went to Israel to cover the trial of Adolph Eichmann (1961), one of Hitler's senior henchmen. Her analysis of Eichmann, as expressed in her book 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality if Evil', was that in blithely following orders he had supplanted his own ideals with those of the State. Her views were interpreted by some as being supportive of a 'not guilty' verdict because he was only following orders.

The film includes taped interviews with a number of other scholars who knew her and/or were familiar with her works. It also includes a number of photographs of Arendt in her youth, and some film showing Kapos (Jewish prisoners) disposing of bodies of a few of the deceased. Dr. Arendt's works became integral to the understanding of the Holocaust after the conclusion of the Second World War.