27/13
Irena Gut Opdyke: What Matters Who We Are?
Line of Events
Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman, the remarkable story of Irena Gut and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy emerges 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, decided 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 of release…
What We Do Is Who We Are
BoumMusic by Charles Trenet Lyrics by Charles TrenetPerformed by Charlie and His Orchestra. I fully admit that I’ve done a poor job of keeping up with current movie releases over the past few years, as my knowledge has been largely ad hoc, based on what’s on my streaming services. I’d heard nothing about this movie until I saw it on Showtime a few nights ago, and I knew pretty much the same about any of the parties involved.
So, on to the movie itself
I also rarely write reviews on IMDB, but I’m drawn to this one in light of the undeservedly mediocre overall score, skewed by a review that I find ridiculous in every way. As others have noted, the acting and production values may be uneven, but what a story! There’s more than a little of Schindler’s List here, but this one is even more extraordinary, with the protagonist in anything but a privileged position.
This comes out somewhere between an 8 and a 9 for me, but it gets the benefit of the doubt for the greatness of the story and the need to raise the collective score here
Others have recapitulated the plot well; I won’t go into that here, but as impressive as this is as a thread, even more so is the moral complexity and humanity of almost all the characters, even the Germans, and the director’s wide-eyed vision that, while they. We’re not the main bad guys here, the Soviets have almost as much to answer for as the Nazis for their actions during this time, putting a lot of the lie into «The Good Fight»; misnomer (like so many other things, which have nothing to do with this film, like the Japanese-American internment, the bombing of the civilian population of Germany and Japan, the indifference to the plight of European Jews, etc., etc.). I’m often moved by great cinema, but I have to admit that I got a little more than teary-eyed watching the further stories of the real-life characters that play out during the end credits (don’t miss this!).
I note that although this film is not Polish, it is placed there, forming a duo of two of the best films of recent years that I have seen together with «Forgotten Love»
Highly recommended.