"The Hate Preacher" on Cellulose

German English language culture site Sign and Sight reviews how in the movie "Hamburg Lessons" Romuald Karmakar uses radical reduction to reveal the Islamist mindset.

"Television images provide no answers here. They do not show how and what Islamists think. Romuald Karmakar's film "Hamburger Lektionen" (Hamburg lessons) makes this thinking visible by opting for extreme asceticism. The only thing you see in the actor Manfred Zapatka."

"Wearing a black suit and dark shirt, he reads the answers that the Imam in Hamburg's Al-Quds mosque (more) gave in 2000 in two "lessons" to questions that arose among the believers gathered in the prayer room. The only trace elements of any "acting" come when Zapatza reaches for some notes which are handed to him by a shadow or are placed on a stool next to him."

"Mohammed Fazazi's lessons were recorded anonymously on video and distributed as propaganda material. The film's script is nothing more than the German translation. Zapatka reads the text in a neutral and distanced voice, he presents it, makes it known."

"Fazazi, who came to Hamburg at the end of the nineties, was given a 30-year sentence in Morocco for abetting the suicide bombings in Casablanca. Three of the pilots responsible for 9/11 were regulars at his Hamburg mosque. There is no way of ascertaining whether they attended the lessons in 2000. But it is not ridiculous to imagine that in the dingy building in Hamburg's red-light district – twice the film shows a view of the street for a few seconds – a monstrous crime ripened that was to become a caesura in the world's history ... >>>