Aufseherin
2017 · 6m
Directed by Wilbert van Veldhuizen
Genres: historical, thriller, war
Hebe, a member of the Dutch resistance in WWII, is captured by the Nazis and pretends to be someone else — but how long before they discover who she really is?
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A WWII resistance thriller that plays it almost painfully straight—no subversion, no formal games, just competent genre mechanics. If van Veldhuizen had leaned into the absurdity of identity-swapping under Nazi interrogation or fractured the narrative itself, maybe there'd be something here to argue about.
Van Veldhuizen situates this squarely in the European art-house thriller tradition, with precise editing that wrings unbearable tension from the gap between Hebe's performance and her interrogators' suspicion—the formal restraint is what makes it sing.
The real move here is the sound design in the interrogation sequences—the way ambient silence becomes oppressive, making every breath and chair creak work harder than dialogue ever could to communicate her terror.
Reviews
When she gets captured by the Nazis she pretends to be someone else, and they seem to fall for it. But how long will it take them to figure out she is not who she really is… and what will happen to her if they do?