Rescue vs. revenge in Jonathan Jakubowicz's intelligent and immersive Holocaust-themed bio-pic, RESISTANCE

Yes, this is a bio-pic, but the biography we get here is a quite interesting look at that of the late/great world-famous mime, Marcel Marceau. For many of us, including those of the senior years, M. Marceau will have been known as only as a mime. Turns out, however, according to the new movie RESISTANCE, written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, Marceau was part of the French resistance to the Nazi takeover of France during World War II -- during which he helped save the lives of hundreds of children.

As the Venezuelan-born Señor Jakubowicz (show at right) tells it, in his tale as-close-to-truthful-as-an-entertaining-bio-pic-can-manage-it, Marcel -- born with the name Mangel, which he only later changed to Marceau -- was a Kosher butcher's son chaffing at his job assisting his father in the shop in Strasbourg, France. In the evenings he performs at a local cabaret, entertaining the patrons with his funny imitations, à la Charlie Chaplin, of the increasingly powerful Adolf Hitler (the film begins on Kristallnacht, 1938).

Marcel is played, surprisingly (to me, at least) and quite strongly by Jesse Eisenberg (shown above and below), who does a bang-up job doing mime routines, especially for the Jewish children he's seen training early on regarding how best

to hide from the Nazis, and he is expectedly excellent (when is he not?) in all other regards. Even his faux French accent is surprisingly good. Though he's no fighter, the need to save Jewish children -- initially in Germany, soon all over Europe -- has Marcel helping the French Boy Scouts and eventually joining the French Resistance, while getting up to the kind of derring-do that you'd expect from the most thrilling adventure film.

One of the great strengths of Resistance, however, is how it shows Marcel's need to place rescue above revenge, even though there is plenty of cause for the latter throughout the course of this two-hour-but-never-draggy film. The movie refuses to become an exercise in "revenge porn," in the manner of the new Amazon Hunters series, which my colleague Lee Liberman recently reviewed. (TrustMovies agrees with her mixed assessment of the series: that "the bits and pieces outweigh the whole.")

Here, the whole is relatively synonymous with the pieces, as Jakubowicz has filled his film with exciting events alternating with quieter scenes that help fill in the characters of Marcel, his family and the children that he and the other resistance fighters try to help.

The Nazi regime pretty much coalesces in the character of the notorious Klaus Barbie, here played well and even relatively subtly by Matthias Schweighöfer (above), shown as a "family man," though not above torturing a priest, let alone flaying alive a woman resistance fighter (in front of her sister, yet). Blood and gore are kept to a minimum, though the acts themselves are spelled out in all their horror.

In the role of the young woman resistance member whom Marcel loves, Clémence Poésy (above, right) registers strongly, as do Edgar Ramírez (below, right), as the father, and Bella Ramsey (below, left), who plays his daughter, the soon-orphaned child with whom Marcel and his brother first bond.

If, overall, the film retains the feel of a somewhat standard bio-pic, the fact that most Americans will be learning a good deal more here than they ever knew about mime Marcel Marceau and see Jesse Eisenberg stretch his acting wings another notch, all coupled to the theme of rescue vs. revenge, makes Resistance a Holocaust-themed movie worth a visit.

From IFC Films and running 121 minutes, the film was to have opened theatrically this coming Friday, March 27, but will now be available via digital platforms and cable VOD -- for purchase and/or rental.

Open Roads 2013: Giovanna Taviani's IL RISCATTO (The Rescue or Redemption)

Shown as part of the Open Roads program that included the longer documentary, Handmade Cinema, IL RISCATTO (click and scroll down), which evidently translates to either "The Rescue" (as the FSLC program notes have it) or "Redemption" as the English subtitles during the film itself translated the word), by Giovanna Taviani (shown below), tells but a tiny part of the story of the ex-criminal (from Naple's criminal organization, the Camorra) and ex-prisoner Salvatore Striano, who starred as Brutus in the recent film from the Taviani Brothers, Caesar Must Die. (Ms Taviani is both the daughter and niece of these two film-making greats.) On the basis of what we see in this very short, very impressionistic and very limited film, both definitions serve the movie quite well.

Signore Striano (below) appears to believe (and actually tells us here ) that he has been "redeemed" -- by art, as he would have it. But he has also been "rescued" by artists such as Matteo Garrone (who used him in Gomorrah) and by the Tavianis -- first by the brothers, who gave him a leading role in their film (which did wonders for his reputation), and now by the next generation in this short film that is making its way around various festivals, showing Striano in a very positive light.

The fellow is impressive. I was blown away by Caesar Must Die, and also enjoyed Ms Taviani's short film, which gives us a tiny part of the man's history, lets him speak a bit and lead us around the little town where the Taviani brothers were born, and where the World War II events of their first huge success, The Night of the Shooting Stars, took place. In the course of the film, Striano explains that the Italian partisans who fought the Nazis killed for freedom and ideals, but that he himself, as a member of the Camorra, killed for nothing.

Striano's own personal freedom came, he says, via his introduction to literature -- Shakespeare and the like, -- and he has now played everything from Brutus to Ariel (we get to see a bit of both performances here). He's a good actor, too, with a somewhat showy style, and in fact, we get the sense that the guy is always acting. He knows how and where his bread is buttered. (He sometimes seemed to me just a little like the main character in Garrone's new film Reality, who is also played by a prisoner.)

Ms Taviani's impressionistic little movie is lovely, as far as it goes --combining sounds, music, literature, visuals (and Salvatore) into a most beguiling mix. Her shots of the surrounding countryside and architecture (below) are as rich and beautiful as her shots of the prison (above) are cold and empty, and when Striano appears, as well, the movie threatens to take off. Yet to really learn who this man is would take a long, full-length film, so this 22-minute movie finally feels like little more than a tease.

At the Q&A following the presentation, the filmmaker talked about how she came to realize that something more was needed about Salvatore and how the town of her father and uncle was important to the story. She also explained how "riscatto" has its two meanings, both of which work, though the audience seemed mostly set upon making redemption the more important one in this case. "How is Salvatore dealing with his success?" someone asked the filmmaker. "He is going through a very positive moment," the director told us, having now acted in Gomorrah and Caesar Must Die, in various plays and now her film -- as well as making personal appearances all over.

Taviani told us that Striano explained to her that, perhaps because she was a women, she has been able to bring out more in him. Usually he plays the tougher roles, the corrupt mobster, the more macho men. When he learned that she was going to America, he told her: "Tell the Americans that I exist because art exists." Hmmm. Well, OK. TrustMovies personally is of the mind that great art can indeed leave its mark upon people. Maybe at some point, Ms Taviani will really delve into this man and show us who he was, who he is, and explore how and why that difference came about.