Before the Fall

Dennis Gansel's heartfelt drama combines the coming-of-age, boxing and Nazi genres to explore Napola, a group of boarding schools that trained future Aryan leaders. Young Friedrich (Riemelt) attends one such academy on a full boxing scholarship; apolitical, he rightly sees enrolling as a way to escape working-class drudgery. He remains blind to the consequences—until he befriends Albrecht (Schilling), a slight, sensitive boy viewed with embarrassment by his cruel father, who happens to be one of the Führer's top administrators. The plot may be formulaic, but the film captures the scary seductiveness of fascism.