Au service de la liberté

I saw this film last night at its advanced screening at the WorldFest Film Festival in Houston. This Canadian production is absolutely marvelous. A feel-good movie about the Holocaust is hard to come by, but this not only fits that description, it refrains from becoming a sappy and trite "let's save the world" flick. Instead, it treats its subject matter with dignity and reveals itself as a poignant film that will cause you to question your own character and faith in humanity. Not only is the story well put together (and based on a true story, at that!), but the acting is terrific, with William Hurt and Julia Ormond delivering outstanding performances. You won't miss the character of Bella Chagall, who steals every scene she's in. Even the minor characters appear to be three-dimensional rather than simple window dressing. The costuming was absolutely sensational; I don't think I've really ever bothered to look at costuming and lighting before but in this case, it's so perfect you can't help but notice. You must see this film!

This man is something of a Schindler, if you will, but he focused mainly on saving artists. Beautifully played by William Hurt, with great supporting actors all around him, this film was obviously made on the cheap, but that doesn't cheapen the content which is worthy. A good family film. I recommend it.

The movie plods along - victim of a poor screenplay that: i) distorts terribly the real facts, ii) fails to convey the excitement and danger of the undertaking, iii) fails to address the underlying moral question of seeking to save only those who've made their names in the arts, and iv) fails to sufficiently acquaint the audience with the merits of those who escape. The best thing about the movie (as true in so many movies) is Alan Arkin's performance in a small role - he's always superb.

I've no problem with the alteration of some facts in order to make a more compelling story. Thus, the fact that Chagall and his wife did not make the trip with Werfel and Heinrich Mann but went at a different time, or that there were actually up to a dozen people working with the committee (many of them European), or that Fry hardly ever personally escorted any of the people into Spain, I see as normal poetic license.

However, to say that the Miriam Davenport character is a composite - but then to steal the name of a real person who died during the production in order to present a terribly ugly and false portrait of her, is not forgivable. From what I've read (including her journal), the real Davenport was a very young, sweet idealistic person whose fiance was trapped in Yugoslavia, not the coarse, promiscuous and tough creature given this name in the movie - (and given a fictitious physical ailment).

And to make Fry a bizarre, hesitant, effete man who affects a dandy's guise - is absurd. Again, from what I've read, the real Fry was smart, straightforward, strict, and decisive. (And he didn't die penniless, but was teaching classics at a New England prep school).

No one in the movie addresses the central moral question - why should the lives of those in the arts be more precious? The vast majority of those saved, had done their best work long before (Arendt is the obvious exception) - they weren't being saved for their future contributions so much as their past. Would it not be at least arguable that those saved should be those who were most involved in charitable works, had the greatest "heart"? Or that those saved should be those whose past indicated the most practicable help to the U.S. should it get into the war? Or that those saved should be those who had the closest family relation to American citizens? The movie's failure to address these questions - and blithe assumption that those in the arts are simply superior to the rest of us, so their very lives are more worthy of preservation - is deeply annoying.

Moreover, the movie fails to convey any sense of the value of the particular people saved. We need to know why these particular people are so important to Fry and others. Why could they not give the viewer a sense of the writing of Heinrich Mann, Feuchtwanger or Werfel? Why could they not show a single canvas of the work of Duchamps, Ernst or Chagall? Why could they not show some of the sculpture of Lipschutz? The political musings of Arendt? We need to know why these people are so critical.

This movie is dull. Those who like it on this board seem really to be responding to the idea of a movie about Fry's work - or to be (quite justly) praising what he and others in the committee did. Since the central drama of the personalities involved is so falsely presented, it's far far better to simply read about them.

Varian was not known to me before this movie and I was disappointed that the movie didn't bring out more about him and his motivations. However, both Hurt and Ormond gave fabulous performances. He had that strange "Roosevelt" gait that you see so much in the 40's and was very understated. This had the look of pretty standard Made-for-TV fare. Usually Showtime kicks it up a notch, but not this time.

In the midst of the Nazi madness when goons hunted down artists, thinkers, and other "misfits" or "queer ducks," Varian Fry was a man who decided to prevent the intellectual and artistic soul of civilization from going into a new dark age. He rescued people who would have otherwise been sacrificed to neutrality as well as to madness.

This is an excellent TV-film that is a memorial to the people who fought against fascism before the armies ever mobilized. The mind is mightier than the explosive and the bullet.