Adam Resurrected (2008)

Not only some deservedly big international actors but also some local favorites from Israel do their best with a script that can scarcely scrape together a brief, weak thread of interest. The movie is based on a book by Yoram Kaniuk, who was also the author of HIMMO, KING OF JERUSALEM. Both stories are about hospitalized men. Evidently Kaniuk identifies with a fantasy protagonist who, by way of great suffering, achieves a martyrdom that returns him to a state of babyhood where he has no responsibilities but is the center of attention and is doted on by a beautiful lady in white. Not a healthy fantasy, but it's not the basic problem of the movie. The basic problem is that the incidents are insistently arbitrary. The hero is at first dependent on a Nazi whose whims are arbitrary. Then he becomes insane, so that his own behavior is arbitrary. Then he's put in a hospital where the rules, as far as the audience can tell, are arbitrary-- restrictive one moment, permissive the next. Unlike the patients in HIMMO, the surrounding patients here are ciphers; they are astoundingly well disciplined, always keeping quiet so that Adam can express himself at will. They restrict their personalities to a single quirk apiece and none of them presents any conflict that could drive a story-- except the boy who behaves like a dog. He presents an opportunity for Adam to redeem himself by helping someone who is in a way his mirror image, and thank goodness for this one escape from the arbitrary succession of dramatic but directionless incidents. Unfortunately it occupies only a little of the movie and is far too sketchy. A dream cast, a fine composer, good visuals-- all wasted.

Jeff Goldblum plays a post-war Jew that spent time in a German Concentration Camp as the commandant's personal clown. Before the war Adam Stein was a stage clown with an amazing act that made everyone bust at their seams. But when Nazi's came to power, his show was abruptly ended and his family was sent to a concentration camp. While there, a Nazi Commandant, Played by Willem Dafoe, recognized him from seeing his show before and assures his safety if he will perform as his own personal clown. This however leads to many months of brutal torture that Adam is never able to forget. Years later, Adam is sent to a research center to help those who were mentally affected by their time in the German Holocaust. The research center peruses Adam to help a young boy that was abused in many of the same ways that Adam was in the CC. A decent independent film with a great performance from Jeff Goldblum. Not everyone's idea of a war film, but well made nevertheless.

I would never,never had gone thru the process to write a review unless it was the kind of movie like this: one Part One flew over the cuckoo nest and one part Earaserhead and one part Anne Frank and one part Elephant Man.It is grotesque yet teaches lessons and confronts life and all of its concerns.By far the best horror movie I have ever seen in my life!William Dafoe is at his sickest best and yet he is looking for and getting no sympathy or even pity.He is a horrible,horrible monster that could only have been created by the Nazi Hate Machine.The young boy that plays the dog does it with earnestness and yet resists the urge to make it into child's play or a sick comedy.Sorry for the simplicity but it is my very first review of a movie.Loved it!

Another holocaust movie.How many times do we need to be told that Nazis=Bad, while Jews=Good? It's high time to stop living in the first half of the last century. Sure, bad things happened, but come on. How many different perspectives can there be? How many oddball points of view are there? A former circus entertainer who was spared the gas chamber and is now stuck in a mental institution specifically for holocaust survivors? Are you kidding me? Why not the story of a former Jewish mechanic who escaped the forced labor of evil Nazi kitchens where he peeled carrots for 21 hours a day, and who now makes cat food for a living in Guadalajara while moonlighting as a house painter? How much more random can it get? What does this story offer to history? In what way is humanity bettered by it? What lessons are learned? None. That's the answer. This is crap. Turn it off.