The Enemy Within
2003 · 52m · Canada
Directed by Eva Colmers
Genres: biography, documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, tender
Filmmaker Eva Colmers follows her father Theo Melzer's three and a half years as a German prisoner of war in Lethbridge, Alberta. Melzer and fellow POWs recall the unexpected respect they received from Canadian captors across twenty-five camps.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a WWII doc to be either flag-waving or guilt-ridden; Colmers dodges both traps and somehow finds tenderness in a POW camp, which is either genius or sentimental mush—I'm still not sure, and I kind of respect that.
A formally disciplined oral history that trusts its archive and voices to do the work; Colmers positions herself as witness rather than narrator, situating this within the best traditions of documentary restraint—the kind of film that deepens on second viewing.
The real pivot is how Colmers lets the men's own recollections of dignity and unexpected kindness frame the entire piece—one editorial choice, and suddenly a POW story becomes about something else entirely, something human.