Diegetics

I saw The Debt yesterday. It is a fabulous film about living a lie. It was very interesting particularly if you've already read 'The Reader' where they stipulate that all great Western literature has the theme of someone who will do ANYTHING to protect a secret.

I didn't really see Hal's critique of the Nazi and the Mossad agent and the Nazi looking like he 'won' something by making the man hit him. I didn't see that as a, "Look I can make you as bad as me.", scene. That's just standard schoolyard rules. When you are at a disadvantage any time you can get your opponent to do what YOU want them to do, it's a win. I don't think he ever thought he made them into Nazis. In fact, he thought Jews were weak cowards.

I agree that the Nazi didn't think that he could turn Jews in to Nazis and didn't want to. He approved of Nazis and disapproved of Jews.

He was trying to manipulate them, because he could, and because he hoped to avoid being brought to Israel, either by escaping or getting them to kill him.

Please watch the film again. Look at the facial expression of the Nazi when he finally manages to make Israeli agent David get angry, when David raises his hand to hit him (in this scene David does not yet hit him and controls himself at the last moment), and at that precise moment, the Nazi's face lights up and his facial expression is happy: "Yes, hit me!"

The Nazi had already asked the Israeli agents to kill him at the beginning after he was arrested and it was already clear to him that they were planning to bring him to Israel for public trial. He did not want to turn the Jews into "Nazis" , but see if he could make them like him psychologically. When he provoked David, it was clear that even if David punched in the face many times this would not have killed him, he just wanted to provoke violence in Jews.

By the way, it is worth noting that a decades ago, when Israelis bombarded some targets in Lebanon (either Hezbollah or Palestinian) and many people died, at that precise moment in Germany a lot of people were very pleased to see that Jews could kill a lot of people.

Of course the Jews are capable of killing a lot of people. That's old news. People only have to read the Old Testament.