Set in post-war Estonia, Klaus Haro's The Fencer tells the story of Endel, a man who is attempting to flee the Russian secret police due to his controversial past as an operative for Nazi Germany. Returning to his homeland,Endel begins to teach at a local school, teaching a host of young children the art of fencing. Living a secluded life, Endel eventually finds his past begin to catch up with him, forcing him to choose between leading his students down the right path or attempting to continue to evade Russian secret police. Based on the real story of Estonian fencer, Endel Nelis, The Fencer is a film that struggles to maintain a consistent tone, being a feel-good sports movie about raising a group of disenchanted youth that never fully clicks when it comes to the darker aspects of its story. The film is too fluffy and sentimental for my taste, never able to create much tension surrounding a character who always has to have one eye watching his back. Every once and awhile the film reminds the viewer of Endel's predicament, but the danger is never truly felt throughout The Fencer, as the feel good narrative completely overshadows the film's more tension-based attributes. The filmmakers seem to intentionally make the dangers an afterthought too, with the most notable example of this coming at the end of the film when Endel is captured by the Russian police while simultaneously his students are winning a major fencing competition. The sequence itself lacks any real emotional weight, but even more so, the very next scene guarantees this, literally jumping right to a title card that reads "Stalin has just died, which led to many prisoners being released". Then, the very next scene sees Endel reunited with his students and his love interest in the film, completely stripping the film of its dramatic stakes and falling back into sentimentality as our main protagonist walks off into the sunset with his students. The Fencer's best attribute is how it captures the feeling of being left behind in post-war Europe, as the school, students, and Endel himself struggle to find the necessary resources to move forward. A love-letter to fencing of sorts, Klaus Haro's The Fencer is a film that chooses a feel-good, sentimental narrative over a more nuanced story of this historical time-period and a man who has finally grown tired of running from his past.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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