Every meal could be their last.
2025-03-27
N/A
123 min
The film follows in the wake of young Rosa who flees bomb-stricken Berlin in the autumn of 1943 and heads to a small, isolated village near the eastern border. This is where her in-laws live and where her husband, who’s deployed on the front, has advised she take shelter until the war ends and he returns. Rosa soon discovers that this seemingly sleepy village conceals a secret: in the forest bordering the hamlet is Hitler’s headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair.
"The Tasters" tells the fascinating but tragic story of the young women tasked with tasting Fascist leader Adolf Hitlers food, to ensure it was not tampered with or poisoned.
Whilst based on fact, this film take's a good number of creative liberties. Only one woman lived to tell her story at age 95, the other young tasters allegedly shot, by the advancing Russian army during world war II.
The simple human norm of a shared meal is upended, in a way that's psychologically unsettling and physically oppressive. These women have no choice but to eat a sample of the food prepared by a chef, for Hitler or face threats of immediate violence, if they refuse.Not to mention possible death if the food has in fact, been tampered with.It may be wonderful food but no one can enjoy it.
What this demonstrates, is the true dehumanising cost of totalitarianism.The life of a group of young women, some with families, is repeatedly subordinated and put at risk, to the benefit of one middle aged dictator.
In summary, this is a rather unique film that takes the familiar and subverts it, in a deeply disturbing way. Most definitely worth a look.
