Did you know that Christian Bale once played a Hamburg boy who is a member of the Hitler Youth but still likes swing music? If not, then you don’t know “Swing Kids” yet. The film from the 90s is included in the Disney Plus subscription.
When I first saw “Swing Kids” (currently available on Disney+), I was only slightly older than the young music lovers portrayed in it by Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard. As someone who fortunately did not have to grow up in a dictatorship, I naturally wanted to believe that I would have chosen the “right” side in this situation. But can one really be so sure of that? Would I really have been immune to the Nazi indoctrination that, after all, led millions and millions of people in our country to follow these monsters who brought so much death, suffering and disaster upon the world?
Because of this question, I was especially fascinated by the relationship between the two best friends, one of whom mutates into a Nazi blindly obeying the ideology, while the other risks his life to somehow escape it.
Recently I re-watched the drama, which is based on a rather lucid but real youth movement of the time. Immediately I noticed some inaccurate depictions like mistakes with the uniforms or bumpy German on posters in the background. It is also quickly clear that it was not really filmed in Hamburg. The filming location was Prague and some of the sets look less like a cinema than a rather cheaply produced TV project. Moreover, there are scenes that are quite cheesy or cheesily written. And even the young Christian Bale is occasionally a bit shaky in terms of his acting. Robert Sean Leonard is much more stable. Nevertheless, the film still touches me emotionally many years after the first viewing. Perhaps in a different, not quite so immediate way, but still absolutely palpable.
As an alternative to the Disney+ stream, you can order the film on DVD from online retailers such as Amazon. Unfortunately, the FSK-12 title is not yet available on Blu-ray, and no such release is in sight:
THIS IS WHAT “SWING KIDS” IS ABOUT ON DISNEY+:
Hamburg in 1939: Peter (Robert Sean Leonard) and Thomas (Christian Bale) are both 17 years old and absolutely enthusiastic about American swing music – the sound, the feeling, the clothes that go with it, the whole lifestyle. Of course, this is anything but welcome in the Third Reich, not to say strictly forbidden. That’s why they can only meet secretly with like-minded people to dance.
One day Peter is caught trying to steal a radio. With the help of the influential Gestapo man Knopp (Kenneth Branagh), who would like to get involved with Peter’s mother (Barbara Hershey), he escapes a terrible punishment. However, Knopp insists that Peter join the Hitler Youth. Out of loyalty, Thomas joins him.
Peter considers the HJ a necessary evil and hates everything it stands for. Thomas, on the other hand, quickly finds real pleasure in the sporting competitions and other events offered there. He doesn’t notice how he is increasingly taken in by Nazi propaganda. Soon he begins to spy on acquaintances and family members for the Nazis. A rift between the once best friends seems inevitable …
Thomas (Christian Bale, l.) and Peter
DANCING AGAINST HITLER
Visually, the music and dance scenes are the absolute highlights of director Thomas Carter’s film (“Metro”, “Coach Carter”). The joy of colour, the set design, the costumes, the exuberant acting of the actors as well as the wonderfully lively, dynamically filmed choreographies are still remarkable today.
In the end, however, the greatest impression left by “Swing Kids” is the realisation of the unbelievably brutal influence the cruel rule of the National Socialists had on even the most private, interpersonal relationships. Neighbours were abducted and murdered overnight by the authorities, lifelong friendships even among children and young people broke down over ideologies or ancestry, and countless families were destroyed forever.
“Swing Kids” is certainly interesting for many film fans to catch up on a now almost obscure early work by stars such as Christian Bale (“The Dark Knight”, “Thor 4”), Kenneth Branagh (“Tenet”) or Robert Sean Leonard (“Dead Poets Society”, “Dr. House”) on Disney+. But it is also a title that – despite its quite obvious weaknesses – still manages to make us think.
