A new Holocaust documentary, Slawomir Grünberg's STILL LIFE IN LODZ, hits virtual

For awhile there, it seemed as though we were getting a new Holocaust documentary every few months, if not nearly monthly. TrustMovies is not certain what happened to stop this -- perhaps the onset of COVID-19 -- but the flow has certainly slowed down of late. After four years of the Trump administration, the rise of Q-anon and more lies and stupidity than you ever thought you've have to endure, it seems salutary, at least, to get back to history, even if that history covers a particularly awful period for much of humanity. All of which brings us to STILL LIFE IN LODZ, with direction and cinematography by Slawomir Grünberg (shown below), which is, while nowhere near the best of this genre, still a necessary addition to the record of the Holocaust.

Written by (and telling the story of) Lilka Elbaum, shown below, the doc covers her family's experience just post-war (1945 - 1968) in the city of Lodz, Poland, and in particular a painting that hung on the wall in the apartment in which Ms Elbaum and her family lived and has subsequently become hugely important in her life. 

Whether it will be for you (it certainly was not for me) is another matter. While the painting more or less holds this documentary (barely) together, it also makes for a lot of repetition and takes up an undue amount of time, even though the doc itself lasts only 76 minutes. 

Elbaum's own family story clearly did not provide content enough to fill up an entire film, and so two other people and their own stories are added here, that of New Yorker Paul Celler and Israeli photographer Roni Ben Ari, both of whom have family roots in Lodz. Yet in the hands of Grünberg and Elbaum these stories don't mesh particularly well, and so the movie simply clunks along, parceling out its history and information in rather catch-as-catch-can fashion.  

In terms of style, Still life in Lodz uses archival footage, along with drawings and animation (as above) to show what those archives cannot. This has been done in various previous docs, and it still works well enough here.

The most interesting segments cover the history of Lodz itself, prior to the Nazi invasion, as well as during and after. Poland has a long history of rabid antisemitism (it was yet another bout of this that led to Elbaum's family having to relocate), and how their neighbors and supposed friends reacted to the Jews being forced to clean the streets of the city once the Nazis took over is one of the film's more telling anecdotes. Others are provided by Mr. Celler (shown below) and Ms Ben Ari. (Celler's reminiscence about hot humid days and what they make him think of will pull you up short.) 

Among the most interesting visuals the movie offers are black-and-white archival shots of old Lodz that morph into present-day scenes in color (as below, just prior to the color being added). 

Elbaum's mother survived the final two years of Nazi terror via the kindness and help of a Polish gentile family who hid her, and we visit the offspring of this family toward the end of Still Life in Lodz. And then we get restoration of that painting to the wall of the apartment building in which it hung for so long. Perhaps you will be more moved by and/or interested in this moment than was I.

The documentary, mostly in English and with English subtitles in any case, opens this Friday, March 12, in virtual theaters across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled screenings, with cities and theaters listed.

Andrzej Wajda's final film, AFTERIMAGE, opens in theaters from Film Movement

Multi-award-winning (including an honorary "Oscar") Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, who died this past year, directed some 56 movie and television projects and wrote, co-wrote or supplied the idea for 36 of them. Seldom out of the spotlight for long, his work, beginning in the 1950s with classics like Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds, continued through the decades and included his famous "Men" movies (Marble and Iron), Danton, his well-received Katyn (2007), and now finally AFTERIMAGE -- his latest and last film.

Wajda, shown at left, has moved, over the decades, from a somewhat experimental and challenging filmmaker to a more conventional one, albeit with a very good understanding of film technique, storytelling and visual smarts. If this final film -- that details the downward spiral of the career of the Polish artist Władysław Strzemiński, once Poland had come, post- World War II, under the thumb of the idiotic Russian Communist rule --

is something less than much of Wajda's oeuvre, it is still worth seeing, as a goodbye to this talented, innovative filmmaker, as well as introducing many of us to the life and work of this renowned Polish modern artist. As portrayed by Bogusław Linda (above), Strzemiński is seen as both a talented artist and teacher, obsessed with art to the dereliction of his duty as husband and parent. His wife, as best I can recall, has already died when the film begins, but his daughter -- sadly but beautifully portrayed as child forced to grow up too soon by Bronislawa Zamachowska (below) -- is in desperate need of a loving and providing parent.

This is clearly beyond the scope of our artist's understanding or ability, and the movie does not try to sugar-coat his failings. It is much more interested, however, in Strzemiński's work as artist and professor at the art school he helped to found and run.

We see how, once Russia controls Poland, Communist philosophy and politics rule all, and how the career and indeed the entire life of someone who opposes this in the name and spirit of art, is all too easily destroyed. In this case, the artist -- unlike so many others in so many places throughout the world -- refuses to kowtow to the power of the new state and so pays for it by having his art destroyed, his opportunity for any employment taken from him, and finally by being unable to eat and eventually to live.

This downward spiral is beautifully filmed, however, with some exquisite compositions and, amidst the drab Eastern European surrounding, an occasional popping of color (via that modern art), and some lush outdoor landscapes (the cinematographer is Pawel Edelman).

We also meet the artist's students (above), who clearly love and cherish him and his ideas, a few of which we hear over the course of the film. I wish the movie has given us more of these, however, as the primary one would seem to be: Be true to yourself in your art. Even if, as appears the case with some of these students, you have not a lick of talent.

The look the movie gives us into "state-sanctioned art" (above) proves fun and interesting, too. Ah, those paintings of "workers" and posters depicting the Communist leaders that keep popping up -- particularly in the factory where Strzemiński finally finds work (until the state gets wind that he's employed once again and immediately has him fired).

Overall, the tale told here is so unrelentingly bleak and obvious, with nary a surprise in store, that we know exactly where we're going from scene two onward. (The movie's opening scene, taking place in the lush outdoors, is gorgeous and funny. Hang on to it.) Granted, the lessons to be learned from the history of dictator-led Communism (none of them benign) bear repeating, lest we forget. And now, with Donald Trump at our helm, together with a large percentage of our populace that appears neither to know history nor care about it, I suppose we'll have to learn that "dictator" lesson all over again. And it really does not matter whether the political philosophy behind the dictator is Communism, Capitalism, or -- as in the case of Trump -- just make money and garner fame. The result is the same: Toe the line or else.

So, Mr. Wajda's final film, then, is a warning, as well as a history lesson and a look at a famous artist whom many of us will not know. It's worth seeing, even if we may choose to remember other of Wajda's movies more fondly and/or find them more memorable.

From Film Movement, in Polish with English subtitles and running just 98 minutes, Afterimage opens tomorrow, Friday, May 19, in New York City at n NYC at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on May 19th and in LA at Laemmle's Royal andPlayhouse 7 on May 26th. A national release will follow.
Click here (then scroll down) to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS: Michal Marczak's entry into the hybrid doc genre

Something akin to the recently reviewed All This Panic, which covers the life of adolescent American girls in New York City as they come to terms with the adulthood that lies ahead, the new Polish hybrid documentary ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS would appear to want to do the same using as protagonists a couple of young Polish men located in Warsaw. Both films, though said to be documentaries, are created with such visual immediacy and flair, using dialog that often seems written rather than spoken, that they more closely resemble narrative films.

Michal Marczak, the film's director and co-writer (along with Katarzyna Szczerba) uses a style that immediately immerses us in his protagonists and their world -- at least that part of their world that he chooses for us to experience. Mr. Marczak, shown at right, begins his film with an explanation of what he calls "The Reminiscence Bump": the tendency of human beings to hang onto memories of adolescence and young adulthood above all others.

And why not? Those are such formative and memorable years, after all. So gorgeously composed, shot and edited is the film that for some while it is easy to overlook the very sexist stance the movie adopts (and then runs with), as our two young men -- Krzysztof Baginski (above, right) and Michal Huszcza (above, left) -- talk to each other but then, when they interact with young women, talk at them. The ladies are objects to possess and play with, but god help the boys, particularly Krzys who becomes the main protagonist here, when some real intimacy is required.

The objectification continues via some full-frontal nudity, of  course featuring one of the young women, while our boys barely bother to take off more than a shirt. At one point, while playing their sex games, the girl mentions what an enormous cock Krzys possesses, but, while she can disrobe and show it all off, his body remains almost entirely off limits. Further, while a huge strain of homo-eroticism binds the two boys, this, too, is completely unexplored, save for some noticeable jealousy on the part of Michal.

All this builds up overtime, and because we learn almost nothing about the background of the two young men -- are they from wealth? Certainly neither seem to work nor even attend school -- the behavior of Krzys, in particular, grows tiresome and annoying. He takes self-involvement to new heights (or depths), even for an aging adolescent, and eventually we see him pretty much entirely as the rather typical male chauvinist prick. (Note the scene in which he walks through a traffic jam in which drivers have gotten out of their cars and are standing in the street to see what's going on. Krzys pays no attention to the one woman we see, nearly knocking into her door, while he carefully walks around all the men who are standing at the door of their cars.)

There's plenty -- too much, actually -- dancing and drugs along the way, which adds to the film's length while not giving us any more characterization. By the finale, I have the sense that the filmmaker wants us to feel happy and encouraged by the state of our "hero" who, looking rather drugged up, is now dancing in the midst of oncoming traffic. But as we've seen no real change or growth in our Krzys, we're just waiting for his next mini-meltdown.

Comparisons have been made between the style of this film and the French new wave. They may be apt, certainly in terms of how sexist were some of those earlier directors (Godard, anyone?). Visually, All These Sleepless Nights is indeed fun to view. And young Mr. Baginski (above) has a face the camera loves. But style, even when coupled to male beauty, can only go so far. From The Orchard and running a little-too-long at 104 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, April 7, in Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and San Francisco (at Landmark's Opera Plaza Cinema) and on April 14 in New York City (at the IFC Center). 

The Little (Sexy, Naughty) Mermaid and her sister show up in Agnieszka Smoczynska's genre-blending THE LURE

Whew! What to make of THE LURE, the new Polish movie from director Agnieszka Smoczynska and writer Robert Bolesto that my spouse insisted simply had to have been made during some former decade because every last one of its accoutrements -- its "look," production design, props, costumes, hair styles, even its music and lyrics -- seem so perfectly attuned to a time past. But, no: The film was indeed made in 2015 and is finally getting its U.S. theatrical release this week. Perhaps the best way to approach the movie is as a kind of singing-dancing, fairy-tale. fantasy, horror movie. It embodies each and all of those genres, and the most remarkable thing about The Lure is that it conflates these genres so well that it arrives on-screen and into our consciousness as something damned near sui-generis.

Ms. Smoczynska (at left) and Mr. Bolesto (below) have worked together previously on a short film and evidently have an awfully good rapport, so they have been able to create a kind of alternate universe in which the most bizarre things happen. And yet they happen so "reasonably" (given the oddness of the time, place and situations) that we simply accept them at face value -- even though that "face" is one we've never quite viewed before. After all, when a pair of young girls rise from the dark water, calling out to the men on shore for help -- while promising not to

eat them -- we've got to know that we're in pretty heady, unusual territory. Soon our girls, claiming to be named "Silver" and "Golden," are living with this on-shore family of entertainers who work in a kind of upper-end strip club, performing as a special attraction and using their ability to change from mermaid to fully human to give their audience an extra treat. And, boy, do they!  (The special effects here are used sparingly but they are done with such skill and imagination that they keep entirely within the movie's special blending of fantasy, sexuality, music, horror -- and romance. It is soon clear, however, that horror will be vying for top dog here (or, in this case, top fish).

The filmmaker's cast, which I will not single out individually, is remarkably good at delivering just what the writer and director ordered. Down the line, each actor's performance seem on target and able to convey via acting, singing, movement and more exactly what's required to keep us in the audience alternately charmed and flabbergasted but always entertained.

Channeling myth, folk tale, romance, sleaze and shock, while providing strange songs that will have you reading the English subtitles quickly and carefully for meaning and enjoyment, the movie races along from scene to scene as sex, romance -- along with the need to feed -- rears their rueful little heads.

TrustMovies did not notice any rating given for this movie -- which he suspects means that it remains unrated. The manner in which The Lure deals with nudity and sexuality (inter-species, at that) means that it most definitely is not for children -- unless parents are willing to spend a rather long time explaining things that may lose much of their magic and/or shock value in translation.

What does it all mean? That question is not even pertinent, I think. The film is what it is. And what it is proves outrageous and rather spectacular, colorful, breathtaking fun.

At the very least it might provide a nice corrective for those folk taken in by all the Hollywood hype over La La Land who were then a tad disappointed when they finally sat through this musical-of-the-moment.

From Janus Films and running a fleet and sometimes quite darkly funny 92 minutes, The Lure opens this Wednesday in New York City at the IFC Center. Elsewhere? I sure hope so. Laemmle's Noho 7 in Los Angeles is said to be presenting a movie called The Lure come early March, but one can't tell from the advance posting whether this is the same film discussed above. I don't understand why the Janus web site for the film is not more helpful in this regard. Posting playdates would be of great benefit to viewers who might want to see the movie.

Video/streaming debut: Władysław Pasikowski's AFTERMATH ups the stakes in the "Europe's-most-anti-Semitic-country" competition

Just when you think you've seen the worst of it, along comes another entry in that ever-popular competition to determine which European country proved the most anti-Semitic during World War II. Of course it all began with Germany and Austria, so they're clearly never off the hook (with Italy not far behind). But, my, how Hungary managed to help the Nazis out, as well (see one of the finest Holocaust films, Fateless). France, too, has a lot to answer for (as the release of both Sarah's Key and La Rafle recently showed us). But, ah, Poland: There is nothing quite like that little country. I don't have time to list all the movies that implicate Poland. Even films like Agnieszka Holland's fine In Darkness -- which showed Polish Jews being rescued, albeit grudgingly, by a Christian Pole -- also allowed us to learn how his fellow Poles treated this guy, post-rescue. One wonders if Britain and/or the U.S. would have acted differently, had they, too, been conquered by the Nazis? Doubtful.

One of the latest in this ever-popular competition is AFTERMATH (Poklosie), a film written and directed by Władysław Pasikowski (shown at left) that, when it made its debut in its home country, had both adherents and naysayers aplenty. I missed it upon its theatrical release, but now its distributor Menemsha Films has made it available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital streaming, so there is little reason for you to miss it. Aftermath, said to be based on actual events, is among the most grueling and shocking of the post-Holocaust-guilt-and-shame movies that yours truly has yet encountered. In it, one brother, who left his native Poland for America years ago (Ireneusz Czop, below), suddenly returns there to find his younger brother up to his ears in odd behavior, with even worse stuff coming from his fellow townspeople, all devout, church-going Christians, doncha know!

What lies at the bottom of all this? It take the entire movie to find out, but as it moves along, Aftermath slowly divulges its information piecemeal, keeping us in the kind of suspense and on the sort of tenterhooks that a good thriller might provide. From the outset we notice the kind of anti-Semitism we're used to seeing and hearing in both narrative and documentary film from and about Poland, so we are more or less "prepped" for some of what is to come. But not nearly all.

Learning the entire story is something else again. While the older brother has his own anti-Jewish tales to tell about his America experience, we still learn things mostly through his eyes, though it becomes the younger brother (Maciej Stuhr, shown above and at bottom) with whom we most identify, particularly when we understand what he is trying to do and the odds against his achieving this.

The townspeople we meet range from marginally helpful to downright nasty, except for a pleasant young woman and a priest (below, left) whose parish is about to be taken over by younger, sleazier blood (above, center, right). What we and that older brother finally discover comes at us in bits and pieces, one more awful than the next. By the finale, this family, the town, and I'm afraid by extension the country itself are held up before us as a collective of ugly, bigoted horror.

Clearly, the filmmaker is after an indictment -- which he gets. But as good as his movie often is, I wish it had refrained from the occasional bit of melodrama that goes over the top. Though in all fairness, I must add that where this subject and the actions of certain so-called human beings are concerned, it is difficult to imagine what "over the top" might include.

Meanwhile, Aftermath, is available now on DVD and Blu-ray and via various digital streaming outlets such as Netflix. Tighten your seat belt and give it a whirl.

In THE TOUCH OF AN ANGEL Marek Tomasz Pawlowski makes the Holocaust magical...

...and, yes, that is problematic. In this week's Holocaust documentary -- ah, they just keep on a-comin' -- we meet and listen to the, ummm, I don't want to say "ramblings," exactly, but I am not certain that I'd call the old man who proves the tale-teller and center of this new film anything like a "reliable narrator." What he tells us is pretty interesting, all right, but it is also bizarre and confusing at times, not to mention offering up angels as a help to would-be Holocaust victims. Granted our fellow, Henryk Schönker, is very old now, with so many of the problems that beset us seniors. But some of what he explains in THE TOUCH OF AN ANGEL is both helped and sometimes hindered by the work of filmmaker Marek Tomasz Pawlowski (shown below). All told, the documentary seems to be memory coupled to the kind of imagination in which facts are not necessarily to be prized above fantasy and the chance for a good story.

"For 70 years, I couldn't face my past," Henryk, shown below, explains at the movie's outset, and then goes on to let us see what kind of past this was. It takes place initially in Oświęcim, Poland (later to be more memorably named Auschwitz by the Nazis), where Henryk's father was chairman of the Jewish community, and whose task it was -- at the behest of the German military authorities -- to organize the Bureau of Emigration of Jews to Palestine. Whether this "immigration" was ever a genuine possibility in the minds of the Germans is questionable. In any case, there were no countries willing at this time (1939) to take in the soon-to-be-decimated Jewish population.

Mr. Pawlowski uses quite an array of visual tropes and tricks to keep us focused on Schönker's story, and for the most part these are a help. They include everything from stop-motion and animation to placing into archival photos the images of actual actors who then move slightly and seem to come to their own odd life. The filmmaker also resorts to the increasingly used "re-creations" of events, as below, to tell his story.

The film is but one hour long, which seems just as well, due to its increasing toll on our patience, for Henryk's tales grow more bizarre and confused as events tumble over each other.  From place to place, concentration camp to concentration camp, his family moves, keeping but a step or two ahead of the worst of it.

At times, Henryk is separated from his parents and sister and then all of a sudden he's back with them. How, why and what happened is left mostly in the lurch. But we do hear about the "angel" (above) who helped with the escape at one point, as well as of a boy they called "Stork," who was apparently blessed with prescience regarding the Nazi's plan and who would survive it. Stuff like this seems more like an old man's "survivor guilt" making itself felt via tall tales than any real Holocaust history, and Pawlowski never intrudes to ask a question or two that might clarify or maybe probe a bit more deeply.

We do get a thoughtful and moving tale of a relative whose dolls (above) stand in for her own little life, as well as an even more interesting tale of the actor (performed by a more recent actor, below) who appeared in the noted film, Nosferatu, and how his own Holocaust story played out.

Overall, the hour passes easily enough, as Henryk, remembers, recites and wipes his eyes a lot. Well, memory for us aged is often like that. The movie is finally a kind of thank-you to any of those who helped the Polish Jews, as well as a condemnation of the so-called "civilized world" for refusing to help. The latter is a legitimate complaint. But I wouldn't want to vouch for Henryk's fractured story as equally legit. (That's the actor version of him as a child, below.)

The Touch of an Angel -- perhaps this is supposed to be the Holocaust equivalent of that popular and schlocky television series from 1994-2003, Touched by an Angel? -- opened today, Friday, January 16, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Town Center 5.