The German Doctor

Exiled Nazi doctor Josef Mengele seizes the chance to resume his racial experiments in this unsettling psychological study from Argentinian author Puenzo (The Fish Child). In the 1960s, Mengele is living in Argentina under an assumed name, José. On a road trip through La Pampa province, he stops in a village and spots Lilith, a blonde girl, playing with some dark-skinned children. The beautiful, otherwise physically perfect Lilith, is obviously too short for her age, which he estimates to be eight years old. Determined to treat the girl’s dwarfism, Mengele follows her family to the resort town of Bariloche, where, posing as a tourist, he insinuates himself into their home. He works his manipulative charm on not only Lilith but also her pregnant mother, though his obsession with the daughter blinds him to the approach of Nora Edloc, a Nazi-hunter. Offering no moral judgments or neat resolutions, this subversive tragedy eradicates boundaries between victim and victimizer. Puenzo also wrote, directed, and produced the 2013 Argentinian film of the same title. (Nov.)