“Colonia” is set during a dark period in South American history, the early days of Gen.
Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, but it somehow manages to feel more like a Hallmark Channel romance than like a serious film.
The movie, directed by Florian Gallenberger, presents us with a happy young couple, Lena (Emma Watson) and Daniel (Daniel Brühl).
She’s a flight attendant; he’s a German living in Chile and involved with supporters of President Salvador Allende.
It’s 1973, and she’s enjoying a glossy stopover with him when the Pinochet coup that overthrows President Allende sweeps them both up.
Daniel is tossed into the real-life compound known as Colonia Dignidad.
A cult presided over by a man named Paul Schäfer (Michael Nyqvist), and in an effort to rescue him, Lena pretends to be a willing convert, joining Schäfer’s glassy-eyed followers.
Capturing a cult leader’s hypnotic power is difficult for an actor, and Mr. Nyqvist doesn’t put across the allure of Schäfer, who died in 2010. And the film doesn’t really put across the horrors of Colonia, seeming more interested in telling a tidy heroine-saves-her-man story. It’s a historical exposé reduced to TV movie simplicity. Ms. Watson — Hermione from the Harry Potter movies — is still in need of a role that will propel her to the next acting level.
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Source: USA Today
