I think the name Wehrwolf being used in the film stuck out to me because of the historical context of the word werewolf. Whether it is intended by the filmmaker or not, it is an interesting name to use for the underground killers in the film because of the historical significance. The term werewolf, while popularized in contemporary media as a beast that comes out at full moon, thanks to films such as The Wolf Man, actually had origins in medieval times. Werewolves were people’s way of coping with the concept of serial killers and such monstrous human beings. People could not come to terms that a human would do such animal like things such as mass murder and so they explained it away with stories like that of werewolves which when seen in medieval depictions, appear decidedly more human. This concept of the werewolf being an unimaginable killer fits well with the film Zentropa’s use of the werewolves being Nazi sympathizers. The werewolves in the film are almost a mythical and unseen force of evil, working by night or darkness.
I also found it interesting how the main character of the film Otto, was given very little agency. He is shown to be a puppet in the schemes of near everyone he encounters. He is seduced by Katharina, ordered around by bosses on the train, and dragged into a bomb plot over which he has little control. This puppet-like state, which he adapts, fits well with the use of a hypnotic narrator. It is almost as though Otto is being led through the story in a hypnotic trance with little control over his own actions.
I attached the woodcut of a werewolf attack, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1512
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