ginamalke

I was rather reluctant that day to see this film, I thought another dark noir experiment. But I love the actor Misel Maticevic and I had seen films by Thomas Arslan, though not the first installment of this triptych, Im Schatten (In the Shadow), so I went to the theater. Right away I found myself deeply involved in a classic masterpiece, a heist movie, but quite different. It had me at the first 5 minutes when you get only action, no talk. On the whole, not a lot of talk, but when it happens, it's perfect and to the point and gives you background of the characters or moves the story forward. You expect violence in a heist gone awry, and indeed it's present, but rather implied through words and results, the camera does not pry on it, so your imagination can fill in the blanks - all the more terrifying. A lot of driving is done, mostly at night, through a rather bleak cityscape, quite a different aspect of the majestic Berlin. My only objection: just a trifle less of driving would have been more. Kudos to Mr. Arslan for this marvelous piece of rigorous aethetics where not one frame is wrong. And Kudos to the actors who are so good you don't forget one face even if it was onscreen for only 2 minutes (the watch buyer, the old friend become evil, the old friend gone legit). I can't wait to see the third part of the trilogy which I read is in the making.

The first two, maybe three episodes looked promising, then we started to get bored with all the rehash and blurring of the individual stories which all end up with loose ends. Such a pity, the acting is outstanding as you would expect from Firth, Collette and Stuhlbarg and all the rest of the cast, the "children", all absolutely fabulous. But great acting does not make a good story. In the end it was a waste of time. I gave it a rating of 5 only for the actors.

How is it possible to go back to normal after two years of unimaginable suffering, after the vicious murder of all 80 members of your extended family, after you have ended up sick and weighing 40 kg at barely 20 years of age? Watching these two Holocaust survivors in their 90s, Lea and Mira, tell their stories to an unseen interviewer, or talking to each other about the horrors of the past, about hopes, beliefs, love and family is above all inspiring. Sad and grating, but also refreshing. Lea's health still allows her to give witness accounts at schools. You might think: Oh, another Holocaust witness, haven't we had enough of that? No we haven't. We need them, as many as we can get hold of, to go on telling their stories before they are gone forever. We and the generation of our children and grandchildren will become the repositories of their memories, and we are obliged to speak out whenever necessary and say loud and clear: I saw them, I heard it from their own mouths, it happened to them. In testimonies like this the hardest job is editing. You have hours and hours of reel, what has to go, what stays…? Kudos to the editor, he or she did a perfect job. I wish this documentary all the success it deserves and hope that governments all over the American continent will acquire copies for every school.