19/38
Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable story of Irena Gut and the triumph of the human spirit over devastating tragedy as she risked her life to save a generation of Jews from the atrocities of the Holocaust. The film was released in Canada on a much wider than typical Canadian release, for some reason its distributor, Elevation Pictures, decided not to give the film a significant marketing budget. As a result, the film failed at the box office and was pulled from most theaters by the end of its third week or premiere… (approximately 2 minutes) The opening title card announces that the events take place on the eastern Polish border. This area of Poland has been invaded by the Soviet Union. Yet 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 Trenet Lyrics by Charles Trenet Featuring Charlie and his orchestra. I fully admit that I’ve been keeping up with current movie releases for the past few years, as my knowledge has been mostly ad hoc based on what’s showing up on my streaming services. I’d heard nothing about this movie until I saw it on Showtime a few days ago, and I knew almost the same about any of the parties involved. I rarely write IMDB reviews, but in this case I’m drawn to it given the undeservedly mediocre overall score, skewed by one review that I find ridiculous in every way. So on to the movie itself. As others have noted, the acting and production values may be uneven, but what a story! There’s more than a little bit of Schindler’s List here, but this is even more exceptional, with the main character in anything but a privileged position. Others have recapped the plot well; I won’t go into it here, but it’s impressive as a yarn, made all the more so by the moral complexity and humanity of almost all the characters, even the Germans, and the filmmaker’s dazzling-eyed vision that while there are no primary bad guys here, the Soviets are held to account for their actions during this period almost as much as the Nazis, which largely accounts for the “Good Fight” lie; a misnomer (as are many other things that have nothing to do with this film at all, such as the Japanese-American internment, our bombing of civilians in Germany and Japan, our indifference to the fate of European Jews, etc., etc.). I’m often moved by great cinema, but I have to admit that watching the following real-life characters’ stories unfold during the closing credits brought me a little more than a tear (don’t miss this!). That’s somewhere between an 8 and a 9 for me, but it has the benefit of doubting the magnitude of the story and the need to raise the collective score. I noticed that although this film is not Polish, it is set there and forms a pair of the two best films of recent years that I have seen, along with “Forgotten Love”. Highly recommended.
