Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: David Kross, Freya Mavor, John Henshaw, Harry Melling, Michael Socha, Dave Johns, Barbara Young, Chloe Harris, Mikey Collins, Gary Lewis, Dervla Kirwan, Angus Barnett, Butz Ulrich Buse, Julian Sands, Olivia-Rose Minnis.
To capture a life in sport in film is something that cinema normally fails to truly understand, it focuses too readily on the large scale, the sense of the occasion and the thousand flashing lights that go off in the subject’s face when they battle through adversity to claim the prize they have long dreamed of holding aloft. Regardless of whether it is in the realm of fiction, or in the arena of prepared truth, films about sporting heroes always feel as if they have only room for the fantasy, the polished glamour and the underdog suitable ending which arguably would feel more at home between the pages of Roy of the Rovers, Victor or Tiger comic books.
The Keeper is suitably different, a film that is to the credit of the writers and director, unafraid to frame many of today’s unfounded concerns about the foreign import to the game and the subject of racism encountered, but also one that understands fully the complex reasons behind the distrust and open hostility by some at the thought of having a German paratrooper play football, first of all for non-league side St. Helen’s Town, and then later becoming a figure who would overcome a sizeable crowd of Manchester City fans who could not forgive the man for the crimes of his country during World War Two.
It might have been what was once considered in the realm of Boys Own material, a story in which the man becomes a leading light in repairing much of the damage caused by six years of war in Europe, who broke his neck playing at Wembley but carried on heroically as his team lifted the F.A. Cup in a blistering final, however this is no delving into the stuff of comic book black and white drawings, this is an depth reflection, albeit with some of the more harrowing moments cut out, of a man who was indoctrinated like so many at a young age to believe that his country’s course of actions were just, and to whom football was a tangible moment in keeping his soul alive.
What the writers manage to bring to the film is the sense of guilt that Bert Trautmann carried with him, arguably the trauma of seeing how manipulated he was, of how others around him revelled in their despicable philosophy, and how that affected him as a human being. In an age where we somehow believe that just because someone is in the public eye, that they may earn thousands of pounds a week “just” to play football, means that they should forgo any emotions, that their position means they are answerable to any person who just happens to shout abuse, is surely to be shown to be a pathetic stance to take, abuse is abuse, and if not for the intervention by Rabbi Altmann in bringing the Jewish and Manchester community to reason, British football would have been for the poorer; a film of reconciliation, to not forget, but to forgive, to see the man or woman for what they are not because of some misguided and ugly xenophobia.
With exceptional performances by David Kross as Bert Trautmann, Freya Mavor as his first wife Margaret, John Henshaw as Jack Friar and Butz Ulrich Buse as Rabbi Altmann, The Keeper is a film that truly encapsulates the idea of heroism is, and the cost, the pain, of what that carries. A film that deserves huge credit for how it mirrors the possible wrong turns the country faces as it seeks to reconcile its own decisions and future.
Ian D. Hall