12/25
Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable story of Irena Gut, and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy, as she risked her life to save a generation of Jews from the atrocities of the Holocaust. Although this Canadian film had a much wider theatrical release in Canada than the typical Canadian film, for some reason its distributor, Elevation Pictures, chose not to give the film a substantial marketing budget. As a result, the film performed poorly at the box office and was pulled from most theaters by the end of its third week or release. (around the 2 minute mark) The opening title announces that the events take place on the eastern border of Poland. This area of Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union. However, the area is occupied by German forces. Irena Gut Opdyke: What does it matter who we are? What we do is who we are. BoumMusic by Charles TrenetLyrics by Charles TrenetPerformed by Charlie and His Orchestra. I must confess that I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with current movie releases over the past few years, as my knowledge has been mostly ad hoc, based on what appears on my streaming services. I hadn’t heard anything about this movie until I saw it on the Showtime schedule a couple of nights ago, knowing about the same about any of the parties involved. I also rarely write notes on IMDB, but I’m drawn to it in this case in light of the undeservedly mediocre overall score, skewed by a review that strikes me as ridiculous on every count. So, onto the movie itself. As others have pointed out, the acting and production values may be uneven, but what a story! There’s more than a little Schindler’s List here, but this is even more extraordinary, with the protagonist having anything but a privileged position. Others have summed up the plot well; I won’t do it here, but as impressive as it is as a story, what is more so is the moral complexity and humanity of almost all the characters, even the Germans, and the filmmaker’s keen insight that, while not the main bad guys here, the Soviets have almost as much to answer for as the Nazis for their actions during this time, largely belying the misnomer of “The Good Fight” (as do so many other things, completely unrelated to this film, such as the internment of Japanese-Americans, our bombing of civilian populations in Germany and Japan, indifference to the plight of European Jews, etc., etc.). I am often moved by great cinema, but I must admit to getting more than a little teary watching the follow-up stories of the real-life characters that appear during the end credits (don’t miss it!). For me, this film scores somewhere between an 8 and 9, but it benefits from the doubt for the greatness of the story and the need to boost the collective score. I note that while this film is not Polish, it is set there, making it a duo of two of the best films of recent years that I have seen along with “Forgotten Love”. Highly recommended.
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