Movie Review: ‘vita Activa’ Raises Insights Into Life Of Philosopher Hannah Arendt

LOS ANGELES — Even decades after her death in 1975, political philosopher Hannah Arendt remains a figure of intense controversy, a situation the woman who said “there are no dangerous thoughts, thinking itself is dangerous” would doubtless approve of. As revealed in “Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt,” a thoughtful, nuanced examination of a complex thinker, Arendt’s willingness to challenge certainties and go against the grain lent her thoughts on topics such as totalitarianism and the plight of refugees a force and originality that make them surprisingly relevant today. Directed by Israeli documentarian Ada Ushpiz, who has degrees in philosophy and history as well as filmmaking experience, “Vita Activa” closely examines Arendt’s “active life” with the goal of putting us inside her formative experiences, the better to reveal who she was and where her attitudes came from. There are interviews with old friends and academic experts and extensive use of filmed interviews Arendt herself gave (mainly for German television) as well as the effective reading of excerpts from her essays and letters by actress Alison Darcy. “Vita Activa” concentrates, not surprisingly, on the celebrated notion of “the banality of evil” that Arendt came up with while covering the Israeli trial of one of the prime movers of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, after coming to view him as not much more than a functionary who only carried out orders. “She believed him, she saw him as a little man,” says Holocaust authority Deborah Lipstadt, and as a result, says Leon Botstein, a friend who is now president of Bard College, “people went berserk.Read more on NewsOK.com