Hans Westmar: A Relic You Probably Don't Need to See

Is it worth your time?

Honestly? Only if you are a history student or someone obsessed with how propaganda uses the camera to manipulate crowds. If you are looking for a Saturday night movie, stay far away. Everyone else will probably just feel uncomfortable or bored by the sheer weight of the messaging.

Watching Hans Westmar feels like being trapped in a room with someone screaming their political opinions at you through a megaphone. There is no nuance here. Every frame is loaded with this frantic, desperate energy to prove a point.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Hans Westmar (1933) through its definitive frames.

The cinematography is surprisingly stagnant for a movie trying so hard to be revolutionary. It feels like the camera is glued to the floor half the time. Whenever the characters start giving their big speeches, the framing becomes stiff, almost like a stage play that forgot how to move.

The odd bits

• The way the extras look at the camera when they think nobody is paying attention.
• The music is so loud it practically tries to bully you into feeling something.
• Some of the lighting choices are just weird—faces get washed out in a way that makes everyone look like a ghost.

It is strange to compare this to something like Buster Steps Out, which at least has the decency to keep things light. Hans Westmar takes itself with a level of seriousness that is almost physically painful to sit through. It tries to build this mythic hero out of a student, but he just comes off as a collection of talking points in a brown shirt.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Hans Westmar (1933) through its definitive frames.

The pacing is all over the place. One minute we are watching a quiet street scene, and then suddenly, we are in the middle of a screaming match in a tavern. It lacks the natural flow you find in a film like Strange Interlude, which knows how to handle a shift in tone without giving you whiplash. 🙄

There is a scene near the middle where the group is just sitting around arguing, and it lasts about five minutes longer than it needs to. You can feel the director hitting the table, demanding we care about this specific argument. I just found myself staring at the wallpaper in the background.

Ultimately, this isn't really a movie. It is a museum exhibit of a very specific, very ugly time. It doesn't want to entertain you. It wants to convert you. And honestly? It fails at both because it is just too damn boring to be effective.

If you want to see how cinema can be used to twist reality, sure, take a look. Just don't expect a story. Expect a lecture that never ends. 📉