The Propagandist (2024) ‘IDFA’ Movie Review: Rigorous, Vital Interrogation of Linkages Between Cinema and Complicity

Luuk Bouwman’s doc, “The Propagandist” is all about projection and hiding. It’s a convenient schematic arrangement of facts and fiction, by dint of which dangerous narratives are mounted. The documentary goes digging through the cracks of the propaganda films Dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen, who also became the President of the Dutch Chamber of Film, created and backed. The bulk of the documentary stems from a collection of interviews, spilling over into seven hours, between 1964 and 1965 by historian Rolf Schuursma. Then there’s another academic, Egbert Barten, surveying Dutch film production during the war years, interrogating the role filmmakers played. Have those directors been held to account?

“The Propagandist” opens with a direct admission – every film has a political message. The film czar, Teunissen got the power to decide what was shown at the cinemas and hence shape perceptions and mold narratives. He confesses even the opposing side can rightfully claim what he was making and supporting is propaganda. Teunissen was interested in cinema from a very young age. He filmed his family obsessively throughout the day over weeks and months. Eventually, he made what he regarded as the first Dutch sound film. However, his debut feature, “William of Orange,” which inaugurated the Dutch national cinema, was hugely dissed by critics. He held on, trying to pool resources and funding for a full-fledged career.

It’s at this point he courted the Nazi occupiers. In the interviews, he claims his country had already capitulated, one of the many points where the two primary academics swoop in and quickly dish out the corrective. Teunissen asserts he joined the Dutch Nazi Party simply to get Dutch cinema back on its feet. But as “The Propagandist” reiterates “the best propaganda works quietly,” the films Teunissen wove and patronized sought to re-energize the sinking morale even as the battlefield news grew bleaker, pressing an impending German defeat.

In the recordings, Teunissen shows no remorse or introspection. He suffered enough damage in his personal life. He lost two sons who became martyrs for the German cause. But he refused to reckon with the consequences of his work. His ego and arrogance bleed through every line he says with pomposity in the interviews. He comes across as someone utterly incapable of looking inward. Denial and unaccountability pervade his perspective of the horrific situations he fuelled doubly.

When asked about the question of Jews, he passes it off as an unfortunate thing done by Germany. He doesn’t fail to add his two-pence opinion that the Jews should have not been so ostentatious and simply caved in. Neither does he speak highly of the Germans. He derides what he views as their egos easily susceptible to being wounded. They need something to make themselves feel superior.

Teunissen has no moral compunction. He insists he’s concerned only with filmmaking. But nothing is so harmless. The films he released in theaters under his watch are imbued with severe moral ramifications and a chilling significance. The historians chip in to reiterate that Teunissen had also shared a list of Jews working in cinema with the Nazis. Complicity can be of different shades, the documentary recognizes this powerfully and with great sobriety. Bouwman distills the righteous interjections of the historians, both calling for a reappraisal of artists and filmmakers who had advanced the occupier cause to varying degrees. That they did matters, irrespective of that those aspects have been sidelined.

Edited with solemn rigor by Sander Vos, “The Propagandist” scavenges through a whole repository of archives to push forth a damning indictment of evasion, irresponsibility, and sheer lies. A lot of history gets brushed under the carpet. The documentary articulates this forced silence, the elision of certain historical facets. Teunissen went on to be taken to court but not for his insidious work in film. Successively, he led a quiet life, editing documentaries but his hard-nosed beliefs in his deeds being morally impeccable never dented. The film establishes a riveting, fraught portrait of the man.

“The Propagandist” culminates with a sorry footnote stating funding for the oral history project of Schuursma was terminated. Nevertheless, this documentary is a staggering, perceptively minute inauguration of important conversations and reflections on the past, historical and cultural. Bouwman’s work slowly and subtly achieves unnerving implications as the curtain is pulled back on collusions underpinning umpteen cultural foundations all over the world, not just in the Netherlands.