#MovieoftheDay: Question 7 (1961) Movies I Want to See: 16/50 The National Board of Review may be my favorite film award group. Partially due to their longevity—founded in 1909, they've been publishing Top 10 lists since 1929 and awarding a Best Film since 1933—but also due to their taste, rather more daring than the Academy's; who else would have Yellow Submarine, The Day of the Dolphin, and Ben Stiller's Walter Mitty on a Top 10 list, especially at the time? In going over their lists, I noticed that there was one Best Film I'd never heard of—this one. It's the most obscure film they've given to the award to, having just 47 votes on the IMDb, less than half as many as the second-lowest. So what is it? It's the story of a musical prodigy (Christian de Bresson) in East Berlin, whose father, a minister (Michael Gwynn) faces repression from the Communist government. He wishes to attend a prestigious state-run academy, but to do so he will have to fill out an application, and to answer the titular seventh question would require him to deny his faith. Caught in a crisis of conscience, he finds an opportunity to make a stand when he is invited to take part in a cultural festival designed to give outsiders a false impression of the government's beneficence. The overtly religious subject isn't what interests me so much as my regard for the NBR (who clearly had a soft spot for Lutheranism—the 1953 Luther biopic made their list for that year) though I would hope it is at least a solid film in its own right. It can be obtained, at least, through a Christian media company. #Question7 #StuartRosenberg (best known for directing Cool Hand Luke) #MichaelGwynn #ChristiandeBresson #Christiancinema #ColdWarcinema
