The Tasters

"The Tasters" tells the fascinating but tragic story of the young women tasked with tasting Fascist leader Adolf Hitlers food, to ensure it was not tampered with or poisoned. Whilst based on fact, this film take's a good number of creative liberties. Only one woman lived to tell her story at age 95, the other young tasters allegedly shot, by the advancing Russian army during world war II. The simple human norm of a shared meal is upended, in a way that's psychologically unsettling and physically oppressive. These women have no choice but to eat a sample of the food prepared by a chef, for Hitler or face threats of immediate violence, if they refuse.Not to mention possible death if the food has in fact, been tampered with.It may be wonderful food but no one can enjoy it. What this demonstrates, is the true dehumanising cost of totalitarianism.The life of a group of young women, some with families, is repeatedly subordinated and put at risk, to the benefit of one middle aged dictator. In summary, this is a rather unique film that takes the familiar and subverts it, in a deeply disturbing way. Most definitely worth a look.

“Rosa” (Elisa Schlott) has recently arrived at her in-laws home in Eastern Prussia keen to hear news of her husband who is fighting on the Russian front, when there is a knock at the door. A soldier demands that she accompany him deep into the adjacent forest where they know Adolf Hitler has his “Lion’s Den”. Altogether, there are seven women and all are initially perplexed as their mission seems only to sit at a table and eat meals that the rest of the nation would give their eye teeth for. What’s going on? Well their chef (Boris Aljinovic) enlightens them. They are tasting the food prepared in his kitchen before it is sent up to the dining room of the Austrian corporal himself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that information serves as quite an appetite suppressant but the oppressive “Lt. Ziegler” (Max Riemelt) soon cracks down on any reluctant diners. He also takes a shine to “Rosa” and soon the pair are quite literally rolling in the hay and she is learning something of a man with quite an heinously recent past. The other ladies don’t immediately take to “Rosa” as she is from Berlin and so they think she has something of a superiority complex. Except, perhaps, for “Elfriede” (Alma Hasun) but it soon becomes clear that she, too, has demons - and dangerous one for all of them, too. When the ill-fated Von Stauffenberg plot raises the temperature still further, things become precarious for just about everyone as news of the impending Nazi defeat and Soviet advances causes mayhem to ensue and “Rosa” to have to carefully consider what to do next. Apparently there is some evidence that there really were tasters for his food, and on that front this film tautly depicts the jeopardy of their day to day lives - and those of those pesky bees, too. Sadly, though, that focus gives way to too many distracting sub-plots that work fine, but are not especially interesting or innovative. Schlott does convey a sense of the conflicted and the anxious quite effectively but none of the other roles are really developed enough to add much to a story that struggles to sustain itself for just over two hours. That said, the production has seen some effort gone into it and the constant “Heil Hitlers” going on do go some way to illustrate just how powerful his cult of personality was, even as the most loyal knew that days were numbered for this regime. Shave twenty minutes from it and focus more on her character and just how paranoid the state had become and this could have been quite a lot better.