Director: Silvio Soldini
Writers: Doriana Leondeff, Silvio Soldini, Cristina Comencini, Giulia Calenda, Ilaria Macchia, Lucio Ricca
Stars: Elisa Schlott, Max Reimelt, Alma Hasun
Synopsis: Seven women are forced to taste Hitler’s food to check for poison. As they spend time together, their relationships evolve between loyalty and betrayal.
The breadth of World War II is such that there will always be new stories to tell. Whether fact or fiction based on fact, this time in world history affected a broad swath of humanity like no other. Every story that crops up is a very human story about survival in harsh circumstances. Not every story is about soldiers or resistance, either. Many people who were affected directly by the war just wanted to try and carve out some sort of life for themselves amid the horror and violence. The Tasters is a story of civilians and very small acts of resistance.
Paranoid rulers have had food tasters for centuries of human history. Even before the true story was told and turned into a novel, which serves as the basis for this film, it stands to reason that Hitler would have employed someone to make sure that his food was safe. This story and the women in it seem as real and complex as women in this situation may have been in life. Director Silvio Soldini and all of his co-writers give us a plausible account of what could have happened in this situation.
Where the story lacks is in the slog of it. It feels like not a lot is happening. Since the well documented attempts on Hitler’s life during his time in power never included a poisoning at this period, there isn’t a lot of true drama. The film feels like it just goes through the motions of having the worst job in the world where the worst case scenario isn’t coming to fruition. The first meal is incredibly tense. The meal in which several women get sick is also harrowing, but for the most part it is a film that marks time. As we see the different title cards that tell us of the month and year, we can feel the inevitability that this unenviable task will come to an end soon, but it feels like so much of the middle sags with inaction.
There are many subplots within the film that add some different levels of tension. There is a need for an abortion, there are secret liaisons with an officer, there’s a husband MIA on the front lines, and, of course, one of the tasters is Jewish and in hiding who arrived at that point under an assumed identity. Each of these subplots could have been its own film. The Tasters pulls us in many different directions, but it serves to show us just how complicated life could be for ordinary people trying to live through the war. It just makes you wish that the tension could have been heightened by one of these subplots superseding the main plot much faster than it does.
It’s a benefit to the film to have a focal character like Rosa (Elisa Schlott). She’s an outsider to this place and living with her in-laws after being left homeless by the bombing in Berlin. She has street smarts that come in handy and a strong will that puts her in a more confident position among her peers. Her story is one of an ordinary citizen not caught up in the politics of Nazism, but just wants the war to be over. She just wants her husband to come home. In that way she puts up a resistance that’s less about force of arms and more about force of will. She will not be broken.
The strength of Rosa’s story is bolstered by Elisa Schlott’s performance. She has to run the gamut of emotions and a strong physical performance as Rosa has to scrap a few times. She’s able to convey complexity with a flick of her eyes or the movement of her brows. Schlott brings a great sense of believability and grounding to an extraordinary situation.
The Tasters is often tense and pulse-pounding even if those moments are few and far between. The film strives to tell a civilian story of war and how the people suffer by their own fascist government, no matter their allegiance. It’s a film that will appeal to World War II buffs and people who have a taste for historical drama, but that may be it.
