Signis

In Darkness

(JPEG)

Poland, 2011, Robert Wieckiwiecz, Benno Furmann Directed by Agnieszka Holland.

Poland’s nominee for Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, 2011.

We are taken back to the city of Lvov, at the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, a severe winter. Lvov is occupied by German forces. Jews are being rounded up or fleeing. This is material from many a similar story. However, director Agnieszka Holland, returning to her Polish roots (both Jewish and Catholic) and drawing on a book about these events and the memoirs of one of the children, has made quite a distinctive and powerful drama. In some ways, it is reminiscent of the story of Anne Frank and her family and friends, trapped for safety in an attic. Where this family and group are trapped is far more difficult, even grotesque, than the Frank story.

At first, we are introduced to two sewer officials who are seen robbing the homes of Jews who have fled. No righteousness here. The central character, Leopold Socha (Poldek) (Robert Wieciewicz, seeming at first like an anonymous, ordinary man who could have a supporting role) has a wife and sick daughter in their impoverished home. Poldek is also beholden to a local policeman who is determined to find and root out Jews. Then Poldek discovers a group of Jews who have been digging through their floor to the sewers. What will he do? Report them? Or capitalize on their predicament? He chooses the latter, taking money after bargaining with them, supplying them with food and necessities as they conceal themselves, literally, in darkness.

This is a long film (almost two and a half hours) and immerses the audience for a long time in the squalor, the stench, the cramped spaces, the darkness, as day after day the small group, supports each other, squabbles, hangs on to life to survive.

It is something of a relief when the audience is able to get out of the sewers and see Poldek in his daily rounds, the fear of his partner, being upbraided by his wife who is suspicious of the Jews. There is a disaster when a German guard is killed by Poldek and Mundek, one of the Jews who is able to come out of the sewers. The Germans exact a terrible toll on Lvov, hanging many locals. This affects Poldek who has become attached in some ways to the hideaways. And it is compounded as the film proceeds: the birth of a baby in the sewers and his and his wife’s willingness to take the child in - but there is no easy solution to this crisis. He helps Mundek to go into the concentration camp to find some of those interned there. And, after his daughter’s first communion Mass and the thunderous storm which floods the sewers, threatening the lives of the Jews, venturing in to lead them to safety.

Eventually, the Russians drive the Germans from Lvov.

At the end, there is a tribute to Poldek and his wife, their being acknowledged as Righteous Persons because of their sheltering the Jews. It is a sombre reminder that many of the Righteous helpers, like Oscar Schindler, were not as noble as they became - that involvement with suffering people drew on their better selves and enabled them to be heroic.

This is a holocaust and help story for a 21st century reminder of suffering and kindness.

Peter Malone