Remembrance of Love

Two prominent actors who came up around the same time that were out and proud Jews were Jeff Chandler and Kirk Douglas. Both made some films with Israeli backgrounds, both were committed Zionists. Though Jeff Chandler left us 51 years ago, if Kirk Douglas's health would permit I think he'd love to get another film under his belt about Israel and the Jewish experience.

Even with such an excellent work like Schindler's List out there, now acclaimed as the ultimate work of the Holocaust, Remembrance Of Love, the last film Kirk Douglas made with an Israeli setting tells the story of a survivor from his teen years of the Holocaust, recently a widower, and traveling with his journalist daughter Pam Dawber to attend a Holocaust survivor gathering. The gathering as depicted is almost like a veteran's encampment, but these people are from all walks of life, some not even Jewish, but all with that life defining experience of feeling pure evil up close and personal.

Douglas has a specific mission to find a long lost love and to find out what happened to friends and family from Poland so long ago. He meets up with Chana Eden and they have a reunion like none other. Eden is now married, but her husband understands what's between them, each thought the other was dead.

Part of the film shows the intricate workings of the vast files of the Holocaust Center in Jerusalem. Ironically the Nazis with their meticulous anal retentive records made it somewhat easier for people to find each other after the war. Once Kirk and Chana do find each other they can relive their lives that few people can ever imagine.

Playing himself, late of Hogan's Heroes is Robert Clary who was a French Jew and was sent to the camps in Poland and survived. He's not a celebrity, he's not Corporal LeBeau he's just one of the survivors and is never treated as anything special. In real life Clary does not perform any more, but lectures on the Holocaust.

Joining those other films; The Juggler, Cast A Giant Shadow, Raid On Entebbe, and now Remembrance Of Love, Kirk Douglas does his personal best in this personal film. God willing the 95 year old Kirk will give us another. If his health permitted, I know he would.

The Jewish widower Joe Rabin (Kirk Douglas) travels with his daughter Marcy Rabin (Pam Dawber) from America to Israel for a reunion of Holocaust survivors. Marcy is a journalist and will cover the encounter and her father has a secret reason for the trip: he wants to find the whereabouts of his girlfriend Leah, who was pregnant during the war. He succeeds in his research but Leah (Chana Eden) is a married woman. When her husband travels to another city for a couple of days, they rekindle their love and Joe learns the fate of their baby. Meanwhile Marcy falls in love with the Jewish chief of security David (Yoram Gal). "Remembrance of Love" is a melodramatic soap opera and propaganda of the Holocaust. The romances of Joe Rabin and Leah, and Marcy and David, have no chemistry and are not dramatic. The guy moves to America and only when his wife dies, he misses his former girlfriend and remember to look for her and their baby. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Lembranças de Um Amor" ("Remembrance of a Love")

Joe Rabin is a German death camp survivor who has never really talked about his experiences during the war. So, it's surprising that he's agreed to go to Israel for a get together for survivors. At first, he's very emotionally constrained and seems out of place. But when he researches there for a long lost and presumably dead lover, he's shocked to learn she's still alive...and how each of them deal with it as well as the reaction of Joe's daughter is what follows.

While I loved this made for TV movie and recommend it strongly, one aspect didn't ring true...and that's the reaction of Joe's daughter (Pam Dauber). It seemed odd and unrealistic at times. It's a shame, as otherwise it's a near perfect film and a heartrending look at the survivors...survivors who were cut off from friends and families and had to pick up and start in another part of the world. Well worth seeing....and incredibly poignant.

Good idea, lukewarmly executed. I enthusiastically agree with the previous reviewer on one important point; if I were to identify THE one single thing that was most wrong with this film, it would be the casting of Pam Dawber as the daughter. She was just terrible. But, from there on we'll need to agree to disagree. I wasn't that pleased with the casting of Kirk Douglas, although his performance was very solid... he just didn't say "Jewish man" to me. For my money, the best and most natural (how could he miss?) performance in the film was Robert Clary's. For me he just lit up the screen in the upbeat scenes, and he made me feel his pain in the somber scenes of remembrance. Some of the plot twists were a bit contrived and a little too "easy", but hey... this was a TV movie, right? Nothing phenomenal here in the way of filmmaking, but some nice scenes of Israel, and well worth the viewing for Robert Clary fans who would like to see him do something a little deeper for a change.

In Remembrance of Love, Kirk Douglas and his daughter Pam Dawber travel to Israel for a reunion of Holocaust survivors. She's a journalist and interested in learning everyone's stories, but he's very closed-lipped about his experiences. Turns out, he fell in love before the war, and he's hoping to find his sweetheart at the reunion.

As you might be able to tell from the title, this movie is all about romance. Pam falls for Yoram Gal, and Kirk's romance with Chana Eden is two-fold, told in the present and through flashbacks of the past. The cutest parts of the movie are the flashbacks, since Kirk's son Eric Douglas plays his younger self! Eric and Irit Frank are really cute together, which is necessary for the audience to care and root for them when they grow older.

If you like these types of movies, or books like The Lost Wife, you might want to give this a watch. It was just a little too "tv movie" for my taste, even though it had good intentions. It completely fits in with every stereotype of a television movie from the 1980s, but depending on your style, that will make you seek or avoid it.