The Beautician

What’s it like growing up thinking you owe your life to one of the most ruthless murderers in history? Emmy Blum is a 76-year-old redhead, working as a beautician in Sao Paolo, Brazil. According to her, the notorious nazi doctor Josef Mengele was obsessed with redheads and was conducting horrific human experiments to prove that people with naturally red hair were more sensitive! In 1944, Emmy was deported to Hungary and first met eerie physician Mengele at the central Auschwitz courtyard. The Angel of Death, as he would later become known, singled her out from the other inmates and within weeks, the unsuspecting woman would become one of his guinea pigs. Emmy claims she got sick almost immediately, but she still believes that it was thanks to him that she escaped the gas chambers. After the war, their paths would cross again – and not just once. 60 years later, Emmy decides to participate in a film about her life, only for “The Beautician” to shift course in front of your very eyes, turning into a gripping study of elusive memory traps and the difficulties of chronicling the past.