Spring 1941 (2009)

The film in a serious subject, but far too often the shaky cam forces the audience to look away missing much of this movie. If you like nausea and headaches check it out. Otherwise simply skip this one. Its really surprising to me that in a day in age when there is so much hardware available to directors to keep video smooth and professional that something like this could ever get made. Directors and Investors: It doesn't matter how good your script is, if you make your movie look like a middle school phone camera youtube video, we can't watch it.

In 1971 Poland, older cello player Planck is greeted as a returning triumph with her daughter. In 1941 Poland, doctor Artur Planck (Joseph Fiennes), his wife Clara (Clare Higgins) and their two daughters are trying to escape the coming Nazis. One of the girls is killed. They find shelter at Emilia (Maria Pakulnis)'s farm house. She's the local grocer whose husband is lost in the fighting. While Clara is forced to stay in the attic, Emilia gets romantic with Artur and tells people that he's her cousin.This Holocaust story could have been made more intense. There is a slight tone problem. It strays too far into love triangle territories. Those parts should be treated with more matter-of-factness. Every hurt feeling and every hesitation adds an unwanted melodramatic feel to the movie. This should have been more tense.

The filmmakers went to the trouble of shooting much of this movie in Poland, and maybe they benefited from something invisible in the atmosphere but there is rather little happening outdoors in the movie and I couldn't have told whether it was shot in Poland or in Poughkeepsie. Because so much of the film occurs in the small space of a peasant's hut, you could mistake it for a stage play with a few cinematic scenes tacked on. And the screenwriter, Motti Lerner, does in fact write mostly for the stage. It could be that audiences were surprised by the relative weight of the indoor part of the story, where everything depends on the interaction of the actors and their movement in a space no bigger than a stage; and by the relative weight of the interplay between the characters living in fear of the Nazis, as opposed to actual encounters with the Nazis themselves. But if you accept that the emphasis lies where it does, then you'll certainly be glad that for once Uri Barbash directed a script by an independently successful playwright rather than by his brother Benny (no offense intended). The actors do a great job of selling the story, and the script does a great job of showing a human dilemma of conflicting priorities with life and death at stake.

This film is a true tear jerker. The pain this family must have felt is unimaginable. As a father I couldn't begin to imagine the pain of losing both of your young children. When the youngest daughter was murdered I felt a knot in my throat. When the second daughter died I couldn't help but have a tear fall down my cheek. This family was torn apart in nearly every was possible. Such little babies ruthlessly slaughtered, what a sad part of human history. How the parents kept going after the first child was killed I can not fathom. Losing a little one to such horrific circumstances, right before your eyes and not being able to do anything about it, not even hold your child is too much to bear. I don't think I would have been able to hold back my emotions or revenge. I am fairly sure I would have died trying to get some street justice.