One Life: A stunning Holocaust story

One Life (2024) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.15.24

Save one life, save the entire world.

 

Until this moment, it’s safe to assume that London stockbroker Nicholas “Nicky” Winton was unknown, here in the States, notwithstanding the 2014 publication of If It’s Not Impossible by his daughter, Barbara Winton.

 

In London, Nicholas "Nicky" Winton (Johnny Flynn) awaits the arrival of a train 
carrying a very special set of passengers.

And yet Oskar Schindler and Winton are revered for the same reason, and director James Hawes’ One Life is an equally moving spiritual cousin of 1993’s Schindler’s List.

There’s no indication of the miracle Winton orchestrated, as Hawes’ film opens. It’s 1988, and an elderly Nicky (Anthony Hopkins) has retired to a lovely countryside home that he shares with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin). He’s at loose ends, but she’s at wit’s end; Nicky’s lifetime of humanitarian work is catalogued in mountains of boxes that have taken over several rooms; there’s no space for them to enjoy the grandchild that their daughter and son-in-law soon will add to the family.

 

Of particular note: the contents of a battered brown suitcase, which rests inside a lower desk drawer.

 

Nicky’s malaise goes deeper. He’s deeply troubled by something that has haunted him for a very long time; Hopkins conveys all this via posture, a weary gaze, and an aura of regret that enshrouds him like a cloak.

 

We then flash back to December 1938, as young Nicky (Johnny Flynn) abruptly cancels a skiing holiday after receiving a telephone request for help from Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp). They’re in Prague, helping refugees who’ve fled persecution from Austria and Germany, into Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

 

Nicky hastily travels to Prague, where he’s stunned by the magnitude of the crisis. The streets are filled with homeless people and families; food and shelter are scarce, and the cruel bite of winter has just begun. Most particularly, he’s appalled by the huge number of children in such a state: particularly vulnerable little bodies unlikely to survive the upcoming months of brutal weather.

 

Hawes doesn’t dwell on this misery, but cinematographer Zac Nicholson’s tracking shot pauses at key moments, highlighting forlorn individuals who establish the magnitude of this crisis.

 

Nicky impulsively insists that something must be done, which initially exasperates Doreen and Trevor, who gently scoff at Nicky’s naïvete. He’s a posh London stockbroker with virtually no experience in such matters; what could he possibly do, that boots-on-the-ground crisis workers haven’t been able to achieve?

The Zookeeper's Wife: Holocaust heroine

The Zookeeper's Wife (2017) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, disturbing images, brief sexuality, nudity and moments of extreme dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.31.17

I marvel at the wealth of previously undisclosed stories that continue to emerge from the Holocaust, particularly with respect to the bravery of ordinary citizens who risked their lives while defying Nazi oppressors.

As Antonina (Jessica Chastain, seated on the stool) and her son Ryszard (Timothy Radford)
enjoy a rare peaceful moment with the Jewish refugees concealed in their basement —
from left, Magda (Efrat Dor), Urszula (Shira Haas) and Regina (Martha Issova) —
they're startled by an unexpected knock at the front door, upstairs.

New Zealand director Niki Caro, whose thoughtful and sensitive films have included The Whale Rider and North Country, has delivered an equally compelling adaptation of poet/naturalist Diane Ackerman’s 2007 nonfiction book, The Zookeeper’s Wife. The resulting drama, anchored by Jessica Chastain’s luminescent starring performance, is touching, suspenseful and at times flat-out horrific, revealing yet another layer of atrocities committed in pursuit of Nazi “cleansing” and “species enhancement.”

Ackerman’s book was constructed primarily from the unpublished diary of Antonina Żabińska (played here by Chastain), who with her husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) directed Poland’s unexpectedly progressive Warsaw Zoo during the years leading up to World War II. Most of the animals were kept not in cages but in habitats resembling their natural environments; numerous critters also wandered among or even lived in the spacious, cheerfully chaotic on-site home with Antonina, Jan and their young son Ryszard (Timothy Radford).

The fascinating complexity of Chastain’s performance is immediately apparent. On the surface Antonina seems vulnerable, slightly withdrawn and oddly fragile: a woman not quite comfortable with the trappings and protocols of so-called refined society. But in the company of the zoo’s wildlife she blossoms into something transcendent: an empathetic “animal whisperer” practically capable of communicating with all the birds and beasts.

We eventually learn the reason for Antonina’s wariness: She’s a Russian-born Pole, and as a child saw her parents killed by Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Trust does not come easily, which also explains her greater comfort among animals.

The Żabińska’s social life is lively, varied and bohemian, their circle of friends including artists, professionals and intellectuals, many of them Jewish. The subtle viper in their midst is Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl), a colleague who visits frequently in his capacity as director of the Berlin Zoo. Even in these early scenes, there’s something predatory about Heck’s gaze, particularly when it lingers on Antonina; it feels as if Brühl’s eyes turn reptilian and beady.

Antonina makes the rounds of the zoo each morning on a bicycle, a young camel trotting alongside enthusiastically. Should a particular critter appear to desire company or need assistance, Antonina will kick off her shoes before entering the habitat barefoot, like some sort of forest-born wild child.

None of this is the slightest bit affected or risible under Caro’s careful guidance, and Angela Workman’s finely tuned script. Nobody here channels the childish fantasy of Doctor Dolittle; if Antonina has any cinematic ancestor, it would be Audrey Hepburn’s mysterious Rima, in the 1959 adaptation of William Henry Hudson’s Green Mansions.

The Debt: Honorably paid

The Debt (2010) • View trailer for The Debt
Four stars. Rating: R, for violence, profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.2.11


Until this film came along, I hadn't realized how much I've missed intelligent, well-acted espionage thrillers.

The Debt hearkens back to the best of the 1960s and '70s spy entries: The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, Three Days of the Condor and anything made from a John Le Carre novel. Wonderful stuff.

Stuck in an East Berlin apartment, responsible for guarding a bound and gagged
Nazi villain for an unspecified period of time, three Mossad agents — from
left, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam
Worthington) — find their nerves fraying, as they begin to argue about how
best to handle the situation.

This new film, tautly paced by director John Madden, is an English-language remake of Israel's equally engrossing 2007 original, Ha-Hov. Madden's interest in the material is understandable; the Israeli screenplay — by Assaf Bernstein and Ido Rosenblum — is clever and suspenseful, while also confounding expectations on several occasions.

In other words, it keeps us on the edge of our seats and keeps us guessing. You can't expect more from a well-crafted espionage saga.

This remake — scripted by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan — covers the same essential territory, with just a few modifications; the new writers obviously saw no reason to mess with a winning formula. Madden's contribution is plenty of tension: from events as they unfold, and also from twists that set up an entirely unexpected third act.

Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren) is introduced in 1997, as she attends a book-launch party for her daughter, Sarah (Romi Aboulafia). Sarah, an investigative journalist, has documented a clandestine 1960s Mossad operation that resulted in the apprehension and death of Dieter Vogel, the notorious "surgeon of Birkenau" who killed and maimed thousands of Jews during World War II.

The mission put three young Mossad agents behind the Berlin Wall in 1965: Rachel, Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson) and David Peretz (Ciarán Hinds). They returned to Israel as heroes, although — we soon learn — the emotional cost was high. When Rachel is pressed to read a section of her daughter's book, during the launch party, her stance is anxious and uncomfortable; Mirren's face conveys considerable unease.

Her reaction is understandable, as we're swept back to 1965, and to the moment that her younger self — now played by Jessica Chastain — was forced to deal with an unexpected hitch in the assignment.

Madden subsequently cross-cuts between these two time periods: at first concentrating mostly on puzzling encounters in 1997 — the tension between these three former colleagues clearly having reached a boiling point, over the intervening years, for reasons as yet unknown — and then taking us back to the mission itself.

Sarah's Key: Unlocking a grim past

Sarah's Key (2010) • View trailer for Sarah's Key
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang


Curiosity, we all eventually learn, can be highly dangerous.

Sarah's Key, adapted by director Gilles Paquet-Brenner from French author Tatiana de Rosnay's novel — which occupied the New York Times bestseller list for 120 weeks — is a melancholy, deeply moving but at times unbearably sad drama. De Rosnay's story reminds us that the past, particularly the uncomfortable past, never really goes away ... nor should it.

Seeking the sense of past horrors she cannot wholly grasp, Julia (Kristin Scott
Thomas) visits the Parisian Holocaust Memorial, where she hopes to, in the
words of a man she meets there, "get away from the figures and statistics, to
give a face and reality to each of these lives."

Paquet-Brenner's adaptation of this story — he co-wrote the script with Serge Joncour — is fueled by two unforgettable performances: the always magnificent Kristin Scott Thomas, as a modern woman increasingly obsessed by her search for truth; and Mélusine Mayance, absolutely riveting as young Sarah.

And while these characters and events are fictitious, they're set against a horrific historic event — the notorious 1942 Vel' d'Hiv round-up in France — that exposes yet another Holocaust atrocity probably not too well known in this country.

It's simply impossible to wrap our modern, sheltered, comfortable brains around the stark reality of what the French did to their own citizens; we can only shake our heads with disbelief. And yet, as Scott Thomas' Julia Jarmond says, at one point, how can we know what we would have done, under identical circumstances, if given a choice between complicity and likely death?

Armchair bravery is easy. God forbid it ever should be put to such a ghastly test.

Paquet-Brenner's film occupies two timelines. The first opens on July 16, 1942, as waves of French policemen and civil servants — cooperating with an order from their Nazi occupiers — begin arresting what ultimately becomes more than 13,000 Jewish citizens. Sarah Starzynski (Mayance) is playing with her younger brother in their shared bedroom, when the authoritative knock comes at the door; thinking swiftly, the girl locks the little boy into a concealed cupboard — the "secret hiding place" — and cautions him to remain quiet, promising to come back and let him out later.

Sarah and her parents are hauled off to the nearby Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they join thousands of other detainees stuffed into the filthy, smelly, unsanitary confines of a structure never intended to hold so many people. Sarah develops a fever and falls ill; nobody can help her.

A few days later, now quite sick, the girl and her parents are relocated to the Drancy internment camp, where children are separated from their parents. Despite her illness, Sarah never loses her grip on the precious key to that cupboard.

The plight of Sarah and her family unfolds in stages, intercut with contemporary scenes that follow Julia, an expatriate American journalist living in Paris with her husband, Bertrand (Frédéric Pierrot), and their teenage daughter. Julia works for a high-tone magazine; she's given the opportunity to craft a lengthy feature story on the Vel' d'Hiv raids. She relishes this chance to shine a fresh spotlight on historic behavior so appalling that French President Jacques Chirac eventually publicly apologized for it, in 1995.

Defiance: Fighting back

Defiance (2008) • View trailer for Defiance
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for war violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.22.09
Buy DVD: Defiance • Buy Blu-Ray: Defiance [Blu-ray]

Daniel Craig's steely gaze, given more intensity by his impossibly blue eyes, often snatches the focus from the grim events depicted in Defiance.

Director Edward Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond) obviously recognizes the power of Craig's noteworthy feature; the camera certainly cuts to the man's eyes often enough. Maybe too often: It's one of a few "movie star hiccups" that occasionally pulls us out of the otherwise fascinating story being told in this WWII drama.

Although believing that their forest encampment is sufficiently concealed, Nazi
planes spot them anyway, forcing Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig, center) to help
his many Jewish followers flee from a rain of bombs. Unfortunately, the
bombers are but one aspect of a campaign to flush all these people out into the
open, where infantry can cut them down...

2008 was a rich year for Nazi and Holocaust dramas, particularly because most delved into events and psychological readings never before brought to the big screen. As I mentioned when reviewing director Stefan Ruzowitsky's The Counterfeiter last spring, I remain fascinated by the number of compelling "new" stories — not really new at all, of course; merely unheralded until now — that continue to emerge from that most horrible time in German/European history.

Defiance is no different. Zwick and co-scripter Clay Frohman, working from events recounted in Nechama Tec's nonfiction book of the same title, eschew the usual cliché of Jews as complacent victims waiting in ghettos and death camps, to focus instead on a group of resourceful Eastern European civilians who fought back: courageously, cleverly and for the duration of the war.

It's the saga of largely unsung heroes Tuvia (Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber) Bielski, who grew up with younger brother Asael (Jamie Bell) on a family farm in Stankevich, in what now is Belarus but in the 1940s — by which time all three were adults — was part of the Soviet empire. Tuvia and Zus, both imposing and charismatic, were known as troublemakers with an aversion to authority.

They therefore were targeted for quick execution when the Nazis invaded in June 1941. But while the German SS and collaborating Stankevich police killed the Bielskis' parents and other family members — including Tuvia's wife and their infant daughter — all three brothers escaped to the local woods, a vast, thickly overgrown area they had known since childhood.

Determined at first to form a partisan group to fight the Nazi occupation, Tuvia and Zus instead wound up gathering any and all fleeing Jews into their ever-expanding encampment. With Tuvia as leader, the group embraced the commitment to save as many Jews as possible: men, women, children, elders ... everybody.

And here's the amazing part: Until the publication of Frohman's book, nobody knew much of anything about the Bielskis or the astonishing degree to which their ambitious plan succeeded.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Grim bedtime story

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) • View trailer for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.20.08
Buy DVD: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas • Buy Blu-Ray: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas [Blu-ray]


Innocence, inevitably, is the first casualty of war.

Children, their hungry and ever-inquisitive minds not yet shaped by hardened reality, experience events — even tragic events – far differently than adults. In Hope and Glory, director John Boorman's 1987 film memoir of his experiences during World War II, his childhood self and friends found great adventure in the rubble of homes bombed during the London blitz.

Having disobeyed strict orders to remain in his own enclosed yard, 8-year-old
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) makes his way through a woodsy area, crosses a stream
and is astonished to find Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy his own age, on the far
side of a wicked fence. Try as he might, Bruno cannot fathom the purpose
behind this enclosed "farm," and his quest for answers becomes increasingly
horrifying, as this film moves to its final act.

All those years later, theater audiences briefly found such behavior heartless and horrifying, then realized they were missing the point: Such actions were not disrespectful, but instead represented the resilience of the youthful human soul ... indeed, the hope of future generations. Children — little sponges, all — are the vessels into which we pour our best virtues ... or our most heinous faults.

Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the child at the heart of director/scripter Mark Herman's eloquent and deeply moving adaptation of novelist John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, yet another intriguing take on the WWII Holocaust. The film is both memorably poignant and tremendously important, as it indicts human ugliness through the insight of the ultimate judge: a young boy's instinctive desire to believe the best of his father.

I recall mentioning, earlier this year in a review of The Counterfeiter, how fascinating it is, at this late date, that dramatists continue to find fresh insight — indeed, as-yet unexplored actual events — in a subject and time period that one would have thought exhausted decades ago. And now it's happening again: As 2008 draws to a close, we're getting not just one but two new sagas of Nazi horror: this fictitious parable by Boyne, and the fact-based Defiance, certain to show a far different side of star Daniel Craig, currently basking in the limelight as James Bond.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Great drama springs not from how we react during our workaday lives, but how we rise — or fall — to the challenge of a soul-numbing crisis. And although world events continue to provide fresh atrocities that one day will inspire their own body of drama — Darfur and Guantanamo Bay come to mind — precious little can match the Holocaust for its depiction of humanity at its most evil, on the one side, and resiliently courageous, on the other.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas begins in Berlin, in the deliberately vague early 1940s, as 8-year-old Bruno learns that his family will be moving to the countryside. The relocation is prompted by his father's military career; although sympathetic about the friends his son will leave behind, the man (David Thewlis) gently explains that a soldier must respond to the call of duty.

Bruno's equally dutiful mother (Vera Farmiga) seems complacently content with this; Bruno's 12-year-old sister, Gretel (Amber Beattie), recognizing her role is to set a good example for her younger brother, smiles bravely.

We wonder, idly, precisely what sort of "soldier" Bruno's father is. We don't wonder very long.