What a special way to reconnect with the pure intention of this craft, to share story and provide it as a gift. I interviewed my two dear friends as preparation to write a wedding speech for them, and filmed the process. The result yielded it’s intended affect - that is, watching these two beautiful lovers blubbering in front of the telly.
When I was a boy, I used to wear this thick yellow jacket all seasons round. My friends would make fun of me as I joined in playing football during recess like any other kid, but blanketed in sweat. On a particularly hot day that I’d refused to remove my thick yellow jacket, my year 5 teacher became concerned. She held me in during lunch. “Lev, are you hiding something?” All these years later, and I realise she was worried I might be hiding bruises, maybe that I was a victim of abuse. But I wasn’t, my parents were amazing, I just hated the body I lived in and hoped if I hid it away from people well enough they’d never have to hate me for it as well. But eventually it’s what I became known for, the kid who wouldn’t take off the thick yellow jacket.
Those close to me know that memory isn’t one of my strong suits, but I’ll never forget with crystal clarity the times in my life I felt so ashamed of my body that I wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t go to the beach and enjoy the ocean, would make up excuses to cancel plans with friends or hide in bathrooms for hours on end during pool parties to avoid the most terrifying question that haunted my Australian childhood. “You getting in the water?”
“Nah” “Why not” “Oh, I just, have an allergy to some sunscreens and I left mine at home.” “Just go in with your shirt on.” Fuck. I’d think to myself, people don’t always offer that, it’s some kind of protection but the moment I step out of the pool they’ll see the shape of my body right under that shirt. Okay, I’ll get in, but I’ll make a plan of how and when to get out. The closest towel is on the chair by the steps, next time someone makes a good joke, or bombs the pool, I’ll get out and hurry to the towel. The bathrooms only a few strides away. Perfect. I executed my plan, made it to the bathroom without drawing many eyes and inside the bathroom I found a friend. He was the other ‘fat’ kid in my friendship group, he was hiding there too. That was the first time in my life I felt like I wasn’t alone in this shame. I remember we didn’t say much to each other, but that we hugged and promised one another it would get better one day.
The very best movies take something deeply specific and explore its lived experience until it transcends into the universal. The Whale, in the eyes of a kid who grew up in shame, is about that shame and what it will exclude you from in life if you let it consume you. It sounds bizarre, almost reductive to Charlie or people who suffer obesity to say I couldn’t help but feel I understood some small part of what Charlie, the main character, was going through. It’s only a sliver of what the film was trying to say, but it was the part that resonated with me.
I wanted to write a review about the film because its craft is considered and intentional, the performances are honest and devastating, the cinematography is invisible in the best kind of way and the score is at times relentless, at times cruel and at times heartbreaking. But in trying to write an analysis of a movie, all I could think of was a kid who wore a thick yellow jumper all those summers because he lived his life in shame. Me and that friend I found in the bathroom at the pool party? We still catch up. We’re not afraid of the ocean anymore.
Go watch The Whale, it’s really very good.
Since the post-war boom, American-style capitalism has become the dominant Western model. Its more right-wing figures have shaped our extreme economic realities, with the devastating psychological and economic effects of Reaganism and Thatcherism. Deregulation, privatisation, lower taxes, and decreased social spending have led to a failed economic experiment that sounds appealing on paper but neglects the human element—selfishness and greed. We’ve reached a turning point towards an oligarchic hyper-capitalism led by the U.S. and increasingly emulated by Australia.
Consider the trends of the last few decades. Australia and the U.S. have seen strong economic growth since the 1980s, yet wages have stagnated for decades. Productivity has soared, but compensation has not kept pace. Why are we so focused on increasing productivity if the rewards don’t benefit us? Because productivity is key to remaining competitive in the workforce. While some of this can be attributed to innate intellect, advances in technology have allowed generalised productivity to boom, growing an economy that increasingly rewards us less for our hard work and siphons profits into private holdings. Healthcare and housing costs are higher, while wages remain stagnant. Unfortunately, indicators of quality of life—critical to our overall well-being—are often ignored. Spoiler alert: these indicators have been trending downward in the U.S. for the past decade.
So, why am I uneasy about this headset? In its current form, it’s not necessarily a productivity device. It looks a bit silly, and it’s easy to laugh at. Unironically, it’s impressive technology, but let’s face it—it’s still very much a tech demo. The real-world ramifications of a device like this won’t be felt until the form factor is perfected and the price point drops to allow widespread adoption. So, what does the perfect form factor look like? It’s currently unwieldy, large, and obtrusive. It can only trend one way—smaller, less obtrusive, more integrated. Just as it took less than a decade for smartphones to become essential productivity tools—without one, you risk being economically disadvantaged—this new AR/VR device may soon follow suit.
I’m not a fan of Musk, but something he said in an interview about Neuralink opened my mind. You might not like the idea of an implant because it raises the question: would I then be a cyborg? Part human, part machine? Musk provocatively asks us to reflect on our relationship with our devices. Could you genuinely live your life as you do now without your smartphone or computer? Most of us are already part human, part machine. While you might find this sentiment distasteful, accepting it as uncomfortable truth can help you understand why Apple’s latest product category is worth considering. It may look like a silly ski mask today, but tomorrow’s version could resemble sunglasses, and eventually, we might see some kind of neural implant or brain-reading device that communicates with external technology. Perhaps these will serve different needs or be integrated into a single package.
Whatever the final product looks like, if you have one, you’ll be economically rewarded. You’ll get more done, more efficiently. If you don’t have it, you may find yourself relegated to a lower economic stratum. I suspect this will occur in my or my children’s lifetime—not immediately, but soon enough. If smartphones are almost irresistible for how they enhance our ability to engage with the modern world, implants or brain-reading tech will be that on steroids. If you think you’ll have a choice to simply say ‘no,’ it’s worth examining your privilege—because, given the chance to gain a significant economic advantage, someone with very little would do a lot to obtain it.
Steve Jobs once described the computer as a bicycle for the mind—human beings on bicycles are the most efficient means of transport. Musk sees implants or brain-reading devices as a way to increase our interface efficiency with the technology we already use. Thus, a person with an implant or brain-reading device could become the most economically productive version of themselves. AR/VR is an historically difficult product category, littered with failures from tech giants. Yet I believe these companies see it as necessary R&D for a future where this category might bridge the gap to brain-computer interfaces, even while serving as entertaining devices in the meantime.
Apple Vision Pro is a testing ground for the future, as is META, as is Neuralink - and these are just the name brands. I don’t say this as a conspiracy theoriser because it’s not a conspiracy. It’s not a secret. It’s simple economics. It is the inevitable end in a system that holds efficiency and productivity above all else. When implants or brain readers become the number one way to remain competitively productive and they find the right price point they will be widely adopted.
But then comes the question of AI. What role will artificial intelligence play in all of this. In the eyes of Neural-link, it ends with a symbiosis of AI and the human brain. A utopic melding that treats neurological disorders and make the idea of ‘genius’ an old fashioned notion. Imagine a scenario where genius IQ is sold on a subscription fee model. But what if singularity happens first. What if some form of AI beats us to the punch. What if we’re made redundant before we even get a chance to be competitive? It’s a weird time to be making predictions of the future. I come with no answers, and only to pose questions. In fact, it’s probable the dunning kruger effect has left me thinking I’ve asked the right questions or postulated in the right direction when more than likely I haven’t even scratched the surface.
We’ve been raised in a world that measures GDP and stock market growth as key indicators for positive growth, figures that tells us very little about the quality of that growth or who it’s going too. A world where productivity is king and competitive edge in the market is survival. Natural, social and human capital is on the decline, and along comes the pre-birth of a product category that might one day become ubiquitous to economic survival. The economic system that will see nations competing for drinking water before reconsidering the modus operandi is not operating in your best interest. It is a product category that will not improve quality of life for most, but rather, in it’s end game will simply turn you into a more efficient economic unit.
On all fronts, technological, moral and societal - whatever makes us human will have to defended in the near future.
To thrive in the space between two live wires that arch and dance. To roar from your belly without abandon and to love so unashamedly that you enter a place beyond time. To rest against a tree and observe so mindlessly the creeks of old growth that you begin to lose your own limbs. To throw oneself into the torrents and trust that you will float, and to challenge the deepest chasms to a show of darkness. To being both the leaf on a meandering stream, and to being the river itself. To showing fear your truest colours and turning away the bellowing calls of cynicism that breed placidity and leech blood from our veins. To enjoying stillness so profound you forget your own agency. To writhing in agony and upending the bowels of hot metal that pierce our flesh and to letting it spill all over the floor. To hold a friend like you would a lover. To hold a stranger like you would a friend. To open ones ears and heart so fully that we might transcend our own bodies and live for just a moment in anothers. To gain agency through the filling of our brains because the mechanisms of this world are created by minds no great than our own. To believing that one voice can change a billion and that to saving one life is to save the world entire. What else than to rage against the call to the mindless wander towards the inert. A precious, delicate and fleeting thing, to draw a single true breath in the face of infinity.
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street is magnificent. An unforgiving tale of moral dilemma told with intellect and compassion. This is one of the most moving films I have ever seen.
The story follows Tono Brtko, a down-on-his-luck carpenter in a small town in Czechoslovakia. Set against the backdrop of post-invasion Europe, the town has embraced its new Nazi rule, abandoning its old ideology in favour of the Fascist Reich. As the brother-in-law of a ranking officer in the local military, Tono is gifted a Jewish store and given the title of Aryan Controller. But what seems like a gift soon reveals itself to be anything but. The party officials have already taken the best Jewish stores for themselves, leaving Tono with a crumbling mess.
And its owner? The beautiful Rozalia Lautmannová.
Rozalia is an elderly Jewish woman, showing many signs of dementia, with deafness to boot. She cannot comprehend that Tono now owns her store, so he plays along—he will be her employee. As the film unfolds, Tono finds himself caught between two worlds: a faithful companion and friend to Rozalia, and his anti-Semitic, opportunistic wife. His wife is a sweet woman, caring and considerate, but so is Rozalia. Why one must blindly hate the other for personal gain is something Tono cannot understand. Why anyone in his community would hate a woman or a man simply for their religion is beyond him. So he turns to drink. Through his dealings with the Jewish community, who protect and support Rozalia, he comes to understand his neighbours for their humanity, not their faith.
The weight of this newfound moral awakening reaches its height at the film’s climax, when, as in countless towns across Europe, the Jewish residents are ordered to pack no more than 30 kilograms of their belongings and are forced out of town to labour camps. Tono must decide whether to protect the older woman he has come to love and respect or cast her into the streets to save his own life. But how does one reason with a woman who has no concept of danger? No concept of war? No concept of Nazis? An impossible task, given to an ill-equipped man. For all his pure and good intentions, Tono cannot be anyone’s saviour. Not even his own.
The Tower as a Symbol of Tono’s Transformation
Serving as a thematic backdrop, the town is captivated by the towering construction of a monument dedicated to its new fascist ideology. This tower serves as a powerful symbol throughout the film, mirroring Tono’s inner journey. The first time he sees the tower, it represents a missed opportunity—a reminder of his failure as a man, a skilled carpenter unable to secure work. The second time, he walks into the square as an Aryan Controller, a business owner. Dressed in a pinstripe suit, he holds his head high. No longer a symbol of his failure, the tower is just that—a tower. Nothing more, nothing less. The third time, Tono has transformed. He is still self-serving, still self-interested, but now carries love in his heart for the community that has embraced him. He drinks to dull his guilt for taking money from the Jewish community. Surrounded by a crowd of proud fascist Czechs, he watches as an officer lights the tower for the first time. It is a symbol of the new order, of wealth and prosperity for the town’s inhabitants, and a death sentence for its Jewish residents. Tono is horrified. He must save Rozalia.
The tower marks three major turning points in Tono’s transformation. This is just one of the many ways the script and imagery in The Shop on Main Street are beautifully conceived.
Light
Light is used to great effect. Shot on high-contrast film, the directors and cinematographer meticulously craft long sequences where characters drop in and out of light and shadow at pivotal moments. Dilemma is a sliver of light in a darkened room. Emotional awakening bursts through in bounds of brightness, overflowing and rich. Tono spends much of the film shifting between shadow and light, and it is no mistake. His moral struggle plays out visually, reinforcing his transformation with elegant subtlety.
You would be hard-pressed to find another film in which the moral awakening and subsequent dilemma of a character are crafted so well. This is a film that stands among the greats—a true work of art.
When story and format fail to understand one another, you get Sunshine. This 3-hour-long journey attempts to show the lives of 5 generations of Hungarian Jews. The only way to accomplish such a monumental amount of story? A 3-hour run time and a LOT of exposition. Not only does this film have a voiceover, but nearly every second word uttered from our characters’ mouths is explanatory.
How can you possibly tell love stories across 5 generations involving 6+ characters? People must speak like this: “I love you. I’ve always loved you.” “You never loved me. I seduced you, it was easy, you were weak. Why? Because you were my brother.” Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that one of these love stories involved an adopted cousin? Charming stuff. They also had Ralph Fiennes play 3 generations of the same family line. This was an interesting concept but a lack of investment in developing rich identities for each character lands it as a failed experiment. Time travelling Voldemort if you will.
There are many ways to tell a story. Invariable combinations of style and structure to convey universal experiences, ideas and quandaries. The best screenplays distill, refine, distill and refine again. They do this because they know the screen is unforgiving, its limits are severe. So they chip and chip away until they know for certain every line of dialogue serves a beat, every beat serves the scene, and every scene finds our character in one state of mind and has them exit in another. These growths and regressions craft character arc, and this arc should dance a ballet with the narrative so that we find ourselves caught in a forward charge of dramatic momentum. People deserve to be rewarded for paying attention.
The only throughline between the men and women of these 5 generations is that 2 generations of them fell in love with their own cousin. 3 other generations decided to have relations with either their siblings’ husbands or siblings’ wives, and at its most tame, simply the wife of a stranger. Later in the film, we have a wonderfully cute dinner scene wherein the uncle of our current protagonist makes a comment at his grandmother’s breasts. “Are you worried I might seduce your grandmother?” the uncle actually says. At this point, of course, the screenwriter is busily tying his erection down with a belt, it keeps hitting his keyboard. “Nothing would surprise me in this family,” replies Ralph Fiennes, the Dark Lord. The table erupts into laughter, as did I. Because nothing says funny like incest in a Holocaust picture.
There’s as much care to storytelling in this film as Homer Simpson’s makeup shotgun. My experience was similar to hers.
A Character Study on J.J. Gittes
After watching Chinatown last night, I knew I had to see it again. This is an elegant and classy film. An homage to an era of filmmaking so long gone, only a buff would know this was considered an homage at the time of its release. I think this film holds its own against The Maltese Falcon (made 30+ years earlier), and for my tastes, is far more compelling. But the true reason I knew the film had to be rewatched was thanks to the performances of our two leads, Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
The two are polar opposites in the way their characters express emotions. Nicholson’s Gittes keeps a tight lid on his inner monologue, whilst Dunaway’s Evelyn allows a range of conflicting emotions to compete at once. You can unpack their line delivery, facial expressions, and tone and continue to discover new meaning—especially on a second viewing once the true plot is known and the mystery gone. So, as a study for character development in my own work, I rewatched the film under the pretence of unpacking the enigma of Gittes’ character. Whilst Dunaway’s take on Evelyn is also deserving of dissection, her motivations become crystal clear on the second viewing—whilst Gittes’ remain shrouded.
Jake J.J. Gittes is a fascinating character. What compels him to act in the strange and confident manner that he does? What outer self has he constructed to interact with the world, and what events created it? Gittes is a man of his own making. We rarely see behind the mask, but it’s clear from the way he carries himself that he believes he’s the smartest person in any room. Even when he doesn’t have the answers, he fills the space as though he does, forcing others to play catchup. Even when they’re ahead, Gittes dictates the rhythm of the conversation. He interacts with the world as if he’s always one step ahead, and the only person who knows otherwise is himself. If you held a gun to his head, I imagine his internal monologue would play out something like: If they’re gonna shoot me, they’re gonna shoot me, but I’ll be pretty peeved to die at the hands of a worthless, brainless gun-for-hire. He’s in control until he isn’t. And when he loses control, he submits to the reality of the situation, accepting that there’s little to be done. This isn’t to say he doesn’t feel fear—he does—but only when it’s clear the worst outcome is already set in motion. Then, at the last moment, when the stakes are absolute, he acts. Decisively.
Gittes has no patience for stupidity. Minor obstacles irritate him. Bureaucracy, incompetence, time-wasters—all draw out his sharpest barbs, small glimpses behind the mask. He’s a confident man in a cynical world. He knows the playbook well, has seen it all before, and is rarely surprised. He thinks quickly, but he’s also self-aware enough to know when he’s overthinking and can shrug the thought off just as easily. Beneath all of this, there is a bedrock of compassion. But compassion has failed him before.
In personal matters and business, he doesn’t concern himself with ethical dilemmas, because to him, they aren’t dilemmas. They’re minor inconveniences. He knows that no rule is so rigid it can’t be bent or broken, especially when he’s always one step ahead. But when it comes to his clients, he follows a personal code. You don’t screw over the people who pay you. You treat them with dignity. This is a man who has convinced himself his work is above board—more than a greaseball handling dirty laundry. He never charges a dollar more than quoted. He might even believe his work is fulfilling. He had to leave the police force, so why waste the skills he spent years developing? Perhaps he tells himself he can do more good outside the system. More likely, he knows the system is rigged, and he operates within its margins for a paycheck, a fine suit, and the occasional intellectual challenge. The system is the system. You can’t fix a broken horse.
There is clear contempt for the police force he once served. He ridicules the lieutenant for his little gold bar. He sees rank and hierarchy as nothing more than an obstruction to justice. But in the end, his own hubris betrays him. Gittes allows himself to fall for a woman again, as he did once before in Chinatown. A woman central to the case. He believes this time will be different. That this time, he can save her. Or maybe he never truly loved her at all. Maybe he saw the parallel to his past and sought redemption.
But in the end, he can’t save her. Why?
“Because this is Chinatown.”
“Chinatown,” the phrase more than the place, is symbolic of American greed and corruption. The power of wealth and the insignificance of those crushed beneath it. He left the force because the system failed, because he saw how it failed in Chinatown. The real criminals got away. The ending confirms what he always suspected. The bad guys win. They win because there is no Chinatown. There is only America. I imagine Gittes heartbroken, but some weeks later, returning to work as if the whole affair never happened. Before opening the door to his next client, he takes a mental note.
Don’t fall in love again.
This is Chinatown.
Playing for Time
Playing for Time is based on the autobiography of Fania Fénelon, whose portrayal by Vanessa Redgrave is nothing short of spectacular. The concept is simple: a group of women are held captive in Auschwitz, spared the gas chambers in exchange for their talents as musicians.
Much like my experience watching 2001’s James Dean, starring a young James Franco, I kept having to remind myself that Playing for Time was made for television. The caliber of Vanessa Redgrave’s performance is worthy of the big screen. She carries the film on her capable shoulders as the stoic celebrity-turned-prisoner, pianist, and singer of the Auschwitz orchestra.
Everything 1960’s Kapo aspired to accomplish as a female-driven perspective of life in the camps, Playing for Time achieves. Over its sometimes messy and unfocused two-and-a-half-hour runtime, the film examines the camaraderie within the orchestra, the inner politics between characters, and the power structures between the Nazi elite, mid-level officers, and the musicians themselves. It explores sexuality and the use of sexuality as a means of survival, the power of hope, and the universality of music.
Yes, I loved this film. That said, the structure of the narrative feels unfocused, and many of its themes and ideas remain underdeveloped. The ideas that do land are often tied up in moral judgments imposed by the filmmakers, which don’t always serve the story. There are some uncomfortable sexual judgments from the protagonist toward one of the younger captives—judgments that don’t stand the test of time.
No other film in the genre explores humanity in quite the same way. It uses the orchestra as a lens into the Holocaust, proving that through specificity, universality is achieved.
If there was ever a perspective on the Holocaust with the most relevance to a modern audience, this might be the one. It deserves to be remade, if only to be re-seen. This is a special story.
Kapò is a very strange picture. It seems director Gillo Pontecorvo was of two minds about the kind of film he wanted to make and the perspective he wished to portray. The film oscillates between dark realism and an unpleasant boring melodrama.
The opening features some beautiful blocking and powerful sequences. One such moment occurs when our protagonist, Edith, returns to her apartment to find her family being thrown into the street and rounded up into trucks. The civilians watching are frozen like glass, while Edith winds her way through them, dreamlike. It creates a powerful sensation, a crystal moment in time where everything is about to change. Pontecorvo’s creativity in staging lasts for the next 30 odd minutes, crafting stark tense sequences of Edith navigating and adapting to life in the camp.
We are introduced to a band of captive women, each with their own unique story. All are wonderfully realised characters. But their personalities are rarely paid off in the film. They fizzle out and become unimportant as the narrative shifts focus. At the heart of this picture is a strong concept. A young woman becoming a Kapo to survive. A Kapo is a prisoner supervisor. They must be cruel, they must be hard, they serve the Nazis because they have no choice. The moral weight of this transformation should be staggering.
I’ll admit I’m actually getting frustrated thinking about the rest of this film. Here’s the short of it. Russian soldiers soon arrive as prisoners at the labour camp and naturally a love story takes centre stage. A woman and a man share screen time under Nazi supervision. What else can they do but fall in love?
A couple of interesting moral dilemmas are thrown weakly at the audience in the final act but by this point the film has lost its steam. The characters so wonderfully set up in the first act are now irrelevant. The horrors and brutality of Edith’s survival are brushed aside. The feminist themes dissolve into thin air.
Kapò has some good moments, even a handful of beautiful ones, but it is ultimately let down by a borderline offensive third act that dilutes its grand conceits in favour of melodrama. Watch the first 45 minutes to the minute for an insightful depiction of life in a women’s labour camp.
Then turn it off.
When Nazerman’s kindly employee Rodriguez points to the Nazi-given tattoo on his arm, he asks, “Is that some kind of secret club… how do I join?” The deeply introverted Nazerman responds, “What you do to join? You learn to walk on water.”
The Pawnbroker is a magnificent film. It tells the story of a survivor, a man in his later years who now runs a pawn store amidst the bustling madness of 1960s New York. This film serves as an examination of a psychological torment shared by many survivors, my grandfather included. Survivor’s guilt and PTSD.
Through beautifully written and gorgeously shot sequences, Nazerman is forced, for the first time in years, to feel fear again. To feel life again. To feel alive. But opening the vault of his suppressed emotions unleashes a flood of pain, leaving him petrified by living nightmares. Each encounter becomes a trigger, pulling him back into past trauma.
Lumet’s toolkit for showcasing the energy of New York against the quiet inner death of Nazerman is simple but executed with breathtaking precision. Sharp dialogue, exceptional performances, and an effective use of editing. The film slices frames of the past into images of the present, culminating in a stunning sequence where Lumet cuts between past and present as if they are two sides of the same conversation. It is startling how well this works, seamlessly transporting us from the claustrophobic metros of New York to the cattle cars that transported prisoners to the camps. It made me physically shudder in fear.
The film opens with a memory, a scene of delicate and otherworldly beauty presented through score and cinematography. Later, as Nazerman’s mental collapse takes full hold, the same memory is called back—but now with music fit for a horror film. Because that is what war has done to this man. It has turned every beauty in his life into nothing but pain.
This is a deeply moving picture and a truly fine character study of Nazerman, and to a lesser extent, Rodriguez. A study of a man who built walls around his pain so high and vast that he sacrificed the essence of his own humanity. To feel is to feel pain. To love is to remember death. To die is a blessing.This is the world Lumet and writers Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin have created for poor Nazerman.
“I was in Auschwitz too. I came out alive, and you came out dead.”
Interesting fact. This was Quincy Jones’ first foray into film scoring.
2025 update: still think about this film once a month, 5 years on
1945
A very quiet and understated picture. Its purpose is entirely to reveal the complicity, guilt, and regret of a small Hungarian town that profited from the expulsion of its Jewish population. It is a sad film, as solemn as its subject matter. The story never strives to be a searing exposé but instead unfolds as a slow, truthful unravelling of a morally corrupt, nameless town.
Why nameless and featureless? Because this town represents many towns across Europe. Untold millions quietly profited from the destruction of the Jews. They moved into their homes, took over their shops, and built their lives on the remains of others.
This is an important film because the subject matter is rarely dramatised. For a number of reasons, I imagine. Namely, what national cinema would encourage a scathing critique of its own country? The past is the past. Leave it where it belongs. I can tell you secondhand that, unlike Germany, there are few Eastern European countries willing to confront their complicity and profit from wholesale slaughter. This guilt may have died with a generation, but their stories must live on.
The Jewish population of Poland in 1938 was 3.3 million. Ten percent survived. Those who did return to Poland or other Eastern European countries found themselves caught in a region-wide pogrom. Many survived the entirety of the war only to return home and be shot dead by their neighbours. Today, Poland’s Jewish population is estimated between 7,000 and 40,000. The Jewish cemetery of my grandfather’s hometown lies in ruin. Their stories erased by time and quiet complicity.
The content of this piece is certainly more engaging than its telling, but it is an important film nonetheless due to its unique perspective.
1945 – a contained narrative of life immediately following the war.
Filmmaking Notes
The blocking felt stilted at times. My guess is that this was due to budgetary limitations and a need for long, quiet scenes to play out in singular takes. Or maybe I’m wrong, and this was just a choice. A substitute for heightened character intrigue was often sit down, then stand up, then take a glass of water, then consider turning off the radio. Had the film spent more time in close-up and less in long-running mid to wide shots, I think it would have had a stronger effect.
I would have liked to see a richer interplay between characters. The minimalist approach to storytelling was well executed, just not my style. The filmmakers found a tone, stuck to it, and told their story effectively.
I did find a dissonance between the score and the picture. I’ll admit my ignorance here—nothing in the score rang a bell as a clear influence. It seemed tied more to theme than to the scenes themselves. A subtle reflection of the simmering guilt beneath the town’s innocent veneer.
Europa Europa
The biggest strength of this piece, for me, was the director’s decision to allow shots of emotional significance to play for an uncommonly long time. A permission of time and space to let emotion breathe.
One such moment. When our adolescent Jewish protagonist reveals to the German mother of his girlfriend his true origins, and the two embrace. The mother, trapped between her daughter’s full-hearted consumption of Nazi propaganda, and her daughter’s boyfriend, a young Jewish boy in love with a girl who could never love his true self.
The visual metaphor sequences were quite startling, if not a touch overdrawn. They created a fascinating dialogue between the competing ideologies of the Fascist Reich and the Communist USSR. It revealed the innate flaws of their respective ideologies in their cult-like upholding of Hitler and Stalin. A particular sequence of note had Hitler and Stalin embrace one another, dancing an elegant ballet in a communist orphanage, candy falling from the sky toward children quick to embrace it.
Tonally I was most engaged when the film took a turn for the surreal or when it revealed a moment of deeper character truth. A favourite scene had our young Jew hidden in the uniform of a Nazi youth, practising his Heil Hitler, then suddenly breaking character flamboyantly, flapping his arms like a burlesque dancer, giggling.
Where the film didn’t quite work for me was the in-between scenes. The moments where it took a real-life story of miraculous survival and framed these events as if he were some sort of circumcised Forrest Gump. A sweet innocent who wandered his way into luck beyond reality. If the story was true, which it is, they should have found ways to block these scenes to ground them in reality. Perhaps the director realised there were moments so beyond belief they had to be embellished and made to look silly, so as not to elicit an oh come on. But if Catch Me If You Can could do it, Europa Europa could have too.
The need to include a voice-over worked fine as exposition, but it detracted from my ability to fully absorb myself in the experience of the character. I think it would have taken time to write around the many story beats and contextual information an audience unfamiliar with history would need to understand.
Overall a thoroughly insightful picture. It soared in its portrayal of the surreal, its examination of vicious ideology, and had a handful of truly special character moments. It suffered when the director failed to establish a reality severe enough to create a genuine sense of peril. This led to a disappointing ending where the narrative fizzles due to a lack of consequence.
Having said all that, I adore this film. Europa Europa, a wonderful study on humanity and adolescence during WW2.
Buongiorno Principessa,
I think this picture was most successful when it was a light-hearted study of an eccentric Italian waiter establishing himself in a new town. The comedic beats were wonderfully written and performed. Where the film missed for me was once it entered the camps. I wasn’t sure who this film was made for, what perspective it desired to portray. Was it for kids? More likely it was for adults with children. What wouldn’t you do to protect the innocence of your child? How far might you go to shield them?
Like Europa Europa, I felt a minor disconnect from the darker realities of life as a Jew during the Holocaust. It never felt insensitive, and the film is full of passionate craft, but I was a touch disappointed with the last third. Similar to JoJo Rabbit, I feel the filmmakers decided the story had to be more universal in its message and imagery, to not turn away the weak-stomached and engage a wider audience in an important dialogue. But I couldn’t help but see the opportunity to craft an ending with richer substance, unafraid to dip its toes into a darker, truer presentation of reality.
I could watch JoJo Rabbit twice in a week and enjoy it throughout, peppered with moments of tragedy, comedy, and truth—altogether very palatable. Grave of the Fireflies, however? I watched it once, and I will never need or want to see it again. Its message will always be seared into my mind. Both approaches to storytelling are vitally important.
There is a magic to this picture, like JoJo Rabbit, that will comfortably captivate and educate audiences for years to come. I think this is a standout film among the genre, a reflection of many important truths, but perhaps not many darker ones. It’s a beautiful story, told well, with a unique perspective on tough material.
I suspect that rewatching this film many years from now, with children of my own, I’ll be able to tap into the intended effect of this film.
Life is beautiful.
