Ray

A metaphor of where our decisions and acts may take us: remembered for the good things we've done (in the Paradise) or totally forgotten.

Greetings again from the darkness. Hollywood, and the movie industry as a whole, absorbs a fair amount of criticism for the perceived lack of originality and creativity in this era of remakes and sequels. However, filmmakers also deserve some credit for constantly finding fresh stories associated with The Holocaust and World War II - seemingly endless sources of material for new movies. As Russia's official Oscar Foreign Language entry, this film from director Andrey Konchalovsky (co-written with Elena Kiseleva) offers up three distinct perspectives of the same tumultuous period.

Julia Vysotskaya plays Olga, a former Russian Countess and member of the French resistance. Ms. Vysotskaya is the wife of director Konchalovsky and has a screen presence somewhat reminiscent of Ingrid Bergman with her ability to appear alternatingly tough, loving, sensitive and stubborn. Her character Olga has been arrested for sheltering two Jewish boys. Philippe Duquesne is Jules, the lead detective assigned to Olga's case. His questionable loyalties are accompanied by a weakness of the flesh that is all too common among those in a position of power. Christian Clauss plays Helmut, a nobleman and German SS officer who is emotionally torn between his personal desires and his duty to the cause of his country.

The story is told from the perspective of each character through a blend of flashbacks and interviews. Harsh lighting, stark surroundings, and their respective wardrobes during the interviews appear to show each being held captive as they are interrogated by an entity that remains unheard and unseen. The interviews provide some insight into the characters, but almost seem intent on keeping us off-balance as the film progresses. It's really the flashbacks that are the most interesting and provide the fascinating details for Olga, Jules, and Helmut.

Beautifully filmed in black and white with an excellent use of lighting effects by cinematographer Alexander Simonov, the tangled web of paths intersecting during war time offers some terrific sequences: a father and son on a morning walk, an isolated and guilt-ridden officer in a fog-draped forest, the immediate scavenging after an unexpected prisoner death, the excruciatingly emotional deportation of Jews, and a remarkable sequence involving a meeting with Himmler and Helmut's subsequent mission to audit the concentration camps.

The brief flashes of joy are usually crushed by the weight of despair and bleakness, yet by the end, we believe we know each of these characters – and what motivates them. Director Konchalovsky's film is an unconventional, creative, and ambitious combination of The Holocaust, Germany's quest for perfection, and the greed and daily desperation of those involved. The interviews might not be what you assume, yet cause us to wonder how might our own interview sound while reminding us that, no matter the circumstances, we can always choose to do good.

This film, while it has some strong moments depicting or discussing incidents related to the Holocaust, was unable to hold my attention like many other could. One reason was that it has little to say that other Holocaust dramas already have, and was thus just very boring, and the characters were generally uninteresting. One strength the film had, probably its main one, is that it has some quite beautiful black-and-white cinematography. However the story was just not put together well and the characters did not hold my attention much at all, and the film's running time was also too long for what it was doing. Apart from that, the film had a couple scenes that were half decent, one specific one where to men were discussing Chekhov and the fate of his Jewish fiance, which (whether historically accurate or not, I'm unsure), was a very well inserted moment, despite have nothing to do with the actual plot of the film.

Overall, if you've seen other films about the Holocaust, the really good ones, whether those are 'The Pianist,' 'Schindler's List,' or 'Ida,' you probably won't get much at all out of this film that those films didn't do a lot better, and won't be missing much.

What surprised me among the comments made by viewers on this page was the fact that none of them (!) even understood that - just like in M. Night SHyamalan's classic film, "The Sixth Sense", all the characters who testify in interviews are dead and therefore questioned by Our Lord, who pronounces the final words in the last scene. Konchalovsky also directed Tango & Cash (1989) - very bad - The Odyssey (1997 TV miniseries ) - ditto, The Inner Circle: An Inside View of Soviet Life Under Stalin (1991) - his most admirable work , Runaway Train (1985) quite good, The Lion in Winter (2003) etc. Etc.