MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
|
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Friday, February 24, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
In Darkness
Surviving The Darkness Of Humanity In Nazi Lvov, 1943
Cast members of the epic drama "In Darkness", written and directed by Agnieszka
Holland. Sony Pictures Classics
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
February 24,
2012
Agnieszka Holland's compelling "In Darkness"
propels us headlong into the nightmare of real hell suffered by Jewish people
trying to flee the ghetto of Poland's city of Lvov, occupied by Nazis in 1943.
Based on a true story, Ms. Holland's epic drama is set there and tracks career
thief Leopold Socha (Robert Więckiewicz), a Catholic Pole who hides loot in the
sewers but comes across throngs of Jews who have escaped a purging of the ghetto
and are hiding there. He's offered money to keep hiding them despite
instant execution if he's caught aiding them. The motivation is only
money, then becomes something more. The group of Jewish people Leopold
hid stayed for 14 months in the sewers until it was safe to leave.
Seventy percent of "In Darkness" occurs in the dark of the sewers, so
meticulously designed, as is the rest of the film, by production designer Erwin Prib. The sewers themselves mark the twists and turns of life and death, a
vital character serving as a subterranean and metaphorical hell of the human
pecking order in the 1940s: Jewish people beneath Nazis, who are just
inches above ground exterminating every last Jewish person they can find.
Thieves like Leopold stand uncomfortably between the Nazis and the Jews,
precariously, sometimes trivially but in history very importantly.
As she does so palpably in her work, particularly the great film "Europa Europa",
Ms. Holland investigates the duality of and deception in humans in their most
trying hour. Here, crisis is at its most dire; the darkness is
representative of humanity's worst hours and creates unnerving conflicts
among those hidden, as well as a strange kind of neutrality and rebirth in
people -- in some instances literal birth. The director films gritty,
natural, powerful scenes in a low light and captures the immediacy and urgency
of a plight of people whose fortunes -- in the hands of a thief whose are
tenuous -- hang in the balance. Leopold's conscience may as well be a
pendulum.
"In Darkness", which expanded its release to additional U.S. cities today
including San Francisco, doesn't scream for your understanding, it puts you
squarely and viscerally in the shoes of people who are at the mercy of a
dishonest man's heart. Ms. Holland throws a harsh spotlight on a confined
people and investigates the human heart's will on all sides. At all times
a total awareness of life and death and the line separating them is abundantly
clear, but at the same time Ms. Holland's film blurs this line so finely that to
be living means to be dying inside. Consciences inevitably shift: Leopold
knows that the money he accepts will soon mean little, and character will mean
more. He uses the guile of his own status to curry favor with his friend
Bortnik (Michał Żurawski), a Ukrainian officer allied with the Nazis.
The drama in the sewers is tense and arresting. There's understandable
desperation among those trapped. Unpleasant decisions are made.
Power struggles between families and loved ones play out. (Faith and the
invocation of God are scrutinized, and Ms. Holland editorializes on those
matters too.) What I saw in
"In Darkness" was indelible and unforgettable. The faces in the dark --
the darkness penetrating the mind and representing the forgotten and despised --
were so expressive; the urges and motivations so present. The situations and
people existing live and breathe so deeply with as much clarity as
murkiness. There's a earthy, musty even sensual beauty in the people
and the atmosphere lurking in those
life-saving and death-trapping sewers that grabbed and transfixed me. Many of the performances
in "In Darkness" are
outstanding, notably Mr. Więckiewicz's fine work as Leopold.
Ms. Holland chronicles pain, pleasure, joy, conflict and dilemma so acutely in a
film superbly shot by cinematographer Jolanta Dylewska. "In Darkness",
which could have rambled, stays on course, balancing the tensions above ground
between Leopold and his family with the suspense of the activity between the
people trapped below.
I was struck by how vivid and alive "In Darkness" was, considering both its
subject matter and the environment it is filmed in. It's an unremittingly
grim experience, as one would expect, but it is more than just that. Left
in the darkness, what do we have? Our souls, our instincts, our beliefs,
our passions and our will to live. What separates us as humans when the
lights are out? When the darkness is the only thing we see? We are
all the same.
Humanity in the darkest hours becomes more raw, clearer and primal than ever,
and what Ms. Holland captures in "In Darkness" so adeptly is the division of
self: that clash between conscience and fear, and the internal battle to
overcome the temptation of doing what is easy over the fear of doing what is
hard. She uses the most trying of circumstances to bring out the best and
worst of the human character, which after all, is what pure, real drama is all
about.
With: Benno Fürmann, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Schrader, Herbert Knaup, Julia
Kijowska, Oliwier Stańczak, Milla Bańkowicz, Marcin Bosak, Krzysztopf Skonieczny,
Kinga Preis.
"In Darkness" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
violence, disturbing images, sexuality, nudity and language. The film is
in the Polish, German, Yiddish and Ukrainian languages with English subtitles.
The film's running time is two hours and 25 minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2012. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
| PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME