*My Neighbor Adolf* is an Israeli, English language film about an old Jew living in Argentina, who got a new neighbor, who has a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. And it is about the paranoid obsession of this man with his neighbor.

The film failed in the box office ( even though most Israeli films do ) getting only 34 thousand dollars back, while probably costing much more. It is shot on an anamorphic lens and it looks like it is shot on film too. It is a period piece, set mostly in the 1960s, with one scene from before the Holocaust. It mostly revolves around 2 men in rural area. So on that note, it is probably not that expensive, but it has a few scenes with extras, that need to look from the right time period. Given all of this, I must assume that it was a rather substantial waste of money. 

The film itself is not terrible. The premise is a bit cringe, not gonna lie. I remember seeing a trailer for this in the cinema and thinking to myself that it is almost interesting, but not something I must go and see immediately. The premise is just about perfect for causally finding this movie on TV or something. But the film itself, the execution of it all is actually somewhat amazing.

It is written and directed by [Leon Prudovsky]() ( a Russian born Israeli film-maker ), who I suspect is a big fan of a [Luc Besson]()'s 1994 masterpiece [Leon](/reviews/Leon_The_Professional). Ah... And you can probably see why...

In both films the protagonist is a broken sort of man that really cares about a plant. The ( emotional ) introduction to Mr. Polsky ( [David Hayman]() ) is very similar in tone to the ( emotional ) introduction to Leon in *Leon*. ( By "emotional" I mean, not the thriller sequence that *Leon* starts with, but the stuff that goes right after that, when we see Leon's day-to-day life. ). Both *Leon* and *My Neighbor Adolf* has a twisted sexual tension. In *My Neighbor Adolf* it is about a seemingly gay relationship between a Holocaust survivor and fucking Adolf Hitler himself! So frankly I'm not sure what movie ( out of these two ) does a better [corruption of the audience](/articles/examples_of_films__corrupting_the_audience_), lol.

[Udo Kier]() plays the neighbor / Hitler in this film. And since Udo Kier appears in a lot of [Lars Von Trier]() movies, it thickens the plot. Lars Von Trier also did a fair share of films with sexual tension and some amazing corruption of the audience. But more importantly Lars's other actor that comes back all the time ( apart from maybe [Charlotte Gainsbourg](), who is Jewish, which is relevant for this discussion, and who had some rather interesting controversy in the her early life, which is relevant to *Leon* ) is [Jean-Marc Barr]() who we know also starred in [Luc Besson]()'s [Le Grand Bleu](/reviews/le_grand_bleu_1988_is_besson_s_dolphin_porn) and in Von Trier's [Dancer In The Dark](/reviews/why_dancer_in_the_dark_is_unique_), with Bjork, for which she received an award at Cannes from none other but Luc Besson himself. And who also played a rather peculiar gentleman in Von Trier's *Nymphomaniac Vol 2* which is relevant to Besson's *Leon*. Hm...

Politically speaking, there is this sort of corruption / anti-corruption double-edged sword that this movie is trying to pull off. It is both an Israeli picture, but also a picture about trying to stop violence. While in the same time proposes to stop hating on Nazis? While in the same time having a strong emotional response to the Holocaust? No wander critics thought that this film is a bit too "camp". It is trying to produce this very complex philosophy, soaked in layers of cognitive dissonance which reflects the existence in Israel today. Or perhaps even reflects Judaism in general. But trying to coat all this seemingly nonsensical contradiction in a thick layer of camp, to make the pill more easily swallow-able. 

**Happy Hacking!!!**