Keeper shies away from showing Trautmann’s Nazi indoctrination
Jewish Telegraph, April 2019
EVERYONE remembers the young girl in the red coat from Schindler’s List.
A similar emotional hook is used throughout The Keeper in the form of a Jewish boy, aged around 10, who wants to get his football back from a group of German soldiers.
Bert Trautmann, who became Manchester City’s goalkeeper, was one of those soldiers and he is haunted by images of the child — although the youngster’s fate isn’t immediately revealed.
Catrine Clay’s excellent biography of the football legend, Trautmann’s Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend, pulled no punches.
Catrine explained how Trautmann totally bought into the Nazi ideology and even reported his own father to the SS because he felt he wasn’t showing enough loyalty to the cause.
But The Keeper bypasses this aspect of the story. It starts with Trautmann on the frontline as his unit is wiped out by the Allies.
Trautmann spends the night in the forests with his dead comrades until he is taken prisoner.
I would have liked to have seen how Trautmann ended up in this situation. I would have liked to have seen how he was indoctrinated. I would have liked to have seen his growth from innocent youngster into Hitler-loving soldier.
But instead the film starts with him being shown in a slightly sympathetic light.
It’s only when he signs for Manchester City that journalists at his press conference grill him for volunteering to join the army and reveal that he won the Iron Cross.
Even when he first arrives at the prisoner-of-war camp in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, he is shown shunning the more extreme prisoners who still believe Hitler to be right.
The other problem I had with The Keeper was the portrayal of Rabbi Alexander Altmann.
It was Rabbi Altmann, the communal rabbi of Manchester, who was instrumental in getting Trautmann accepted by the Jewish and wider communities.
But most of the time that he is on screen, played by Butz Ulrich Buse, he is in a pub.
And to compound things further, during the 1956 FA Cup final — when Trautmann famously broke his neck — Rabbi Altmann is seen watching the match in a pub . . . on Saturday, May 5.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I really don’t believe that an Orthodox rabbi would be watching a football match in a pub on Shabbat.
I know you have to allow the film-makers some artistic licence, but this scene does push the boundaries a bit.
But the film is an entertaining watch. Most of the time, it feels like a feel-good British film in the style of There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble or even Billy Elliot.
At other times, it slips into European arthouse mode.
Another positive is the use of non-familiar actors in the lead roles. David Kross is perfect as Trautmann, while Freya Mavor sparkles as love interest Margaret Friar.
More recognisable is John Henshaw as Jack Friar, who discovered Trautmann’s talents in the prisoner-of-war camp and signed him up for St Helens Town.
The film has the ability to affect the viewers’ emotions. After the war ends, the prisoners were still held at the camp while it was decided if any had committed war crimes.
The inmates are shown preparing to stage a comedy show, but first they are told they are to be shown a short film . . . about the liberation of Bergen-Belsen.
Director Marcus H Rosenmüller shoots this scene beautifully. Instead of focusing on the images of the dead Jewish victims, his camera catches the horror in the German viewers’ faces.
A later tragedy that befalls Trautmann and his wife is also handled well by the filmmaker.
The Keeper is more than a football film in the same way that Billy Elliot is more than a film about ballet and The Full Monty is more than a film about male strippers.
The Keeper is a drama, a comedy, a tragedy and a love story — not just a love story between Bert and Margaret, but also how Bert stole the hearts of the British public.
