Murray State University’s Cinema International is screening the 2022 Austrian-German film The Fox this week.
Ben Post, the co-director of Cinema International and associate professor of Spanish, and associate professor of French and German Roxane Riegler talked with WKMS Morning Edition host Daniel Hurt about The Fox and what they hope audiences come away with, including a better understanding of humanity during times of war.
Based on a true story, The Fox follows an Austrian soldier from an impoverished family who serves in the German Wehrmacht during World War II. The young man, traumatized as a child, forms a bond with a fox cub he rescues, which distracts him from the war.
Directed by Adrian Goiginger and starring Simon Morzé, Maximilian Reinwald and Karl Markovics, the film explores complex themes of guilt, innocence, and the human side of war.
Riegler said the film is based on the true story of the film director’s great grandfather, who served in the German Wehrmacht.
“It begins before the war. The great grandfather was actually part of an impoverished peasant family, and they were so poor that the family had to sell or to give away the son, a 17-year-old son, to a richer resident that lives lower in the valley, and they have never saw him again, but at least he got some education.” said Riegler. “He was fed. He could eat. And that's also the reason why he joined the Austrian army: to have three meals per day. And then, of course, when Germany annexed Austria, he was incorporated in the German Wehrmacht, and then that's when the story continues.”
She said the film is less about the war or Axis versus Allies, but based more around the protagonist’s relationship with a small fox cub that he discovers while fighting on the frontlines.
“The film doesn't really question the protagonist's guilt or innocence. What it is focusing on is his relationship to that little fox cub that he finds in the woods that is injured like himself, and he nurses his fox back to health and keeps him and we can see the fox growing up during the movie.” Riegler said.
Post said that while the protagonist is not actively involved in the combat, he is still complicit in the war because of his role as a courier delivering information to the German war effort.
“The film isn't really exactly about the question of innocence or guilt… but it is also a war movie where we see him actively participating in the blitz of France, as he also had participated in the blitz of Poland,” Post said. “He's delivering messages on a motorcycle. So in one sense, he's removed from the actual acts of physical violence against French civilians and Polish civilians. On the other hand, he's completely complicit in it, delivering these messages.”
Post said he hopes that people come away from this movie with the understanding that as film is edited, that is, a filmmaker edits film and puts it together, but it is also how humans treat history and how we remember the war.
There are five foxes in the film, four being real and one being computer generated, but Post said it is difficult to tell reality from software. He compares this to memories of the past.
“Thinking about film as editing, and thinking about our World War II, memory is also a type of editing.” Post said. “This filmmaker is piecing together a story about his great grandfather out of bits and pieces of other memories and art. And I think thinking about that type of artistic production is really helpful when we think about the ways that all of us remember this time in human history.”
The Fox will be screened on Thursday, September 19th and Saturday, September 21st in Faculty Hall room 208 on the main campus of Murray State University. It is free and open to the public.
