Agnieska Holland’s film IN DARKNESS (MA) conjures not only SCHINDLER’S LIST but Nathan Englander’s recent short story collection, WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK.
One may ask if everything has now been said on the subject of the Holocaust. But in Holland’s opinion the main mystery hasn’t yet been resolved, or even fully explored. How was this crime (echoes of which continue in different places in the world from Rwanda to Bosnia) possible? Where was Man during this crisis? Where was God? Are these events and actions the exception in human history or do they reveal an inner, dark truth about our nature? Does our true nature live IN DARKNESS?!
Exploring the many stories from this period uncovers the incredible variety of human destinies and adventures, revealed in the richest texture of plots and dramas, with characters that face difficult moral and human choices, exercising both the best and the worst in human nature.
One of those stories is Leopold Socha and the group of Jews from Lvov’s Ghetto, whom he hides in the city’s sewers. The main character is ambiguous: seemingly a good family man, yet a petty thief and a crook, religious and immoral at the same time, perhaps an ordinary man, living in terrible times. During the story Socha grows in many ways as a human being. There is nothing easy or sentimental in his journey.
This is why it’s fascinating; it’s why we can make this journey with him. The group of Jews he saves is not made of angels. The fear, the terrible conditions, their own selfishness make them complex and difficult, sometimes unbearable human beings. But they are real and alive, and their imperfections give them a stronger claim to their right to life than any idealized version of victims could.
The screenplay is by novice screenwriter, David F. Shamoon, the son of parents who had to flee Baghdad to escape Iraq’s persecution of Jews, who personally optioned the film rights to the book, IN THE SEWERS OF LVOV by Robert Marshall, and spent a year researching the era and writing the script ‘on spec’.
Instead of the attics and basements and barns used to conceal Jews fleeing from Nazi annihilation, this group is secreted in the sewers, a dank, dark, disgusting dungeon, degraded in a damp dung heap, a labyrinth of liquid filth. They live in the dark, stink, wet and isolation for over a year. An ordeal of ordure…
Arbitrary executions coincide with selfless acts of love as the film runs a gamut of extremes, a testament to human endurance and the eventual triumph over inhumanity.
Great films like this remind us of uncomfortable truths but also attest against the detestable, and that IN DARKNESS a light can be shed, and shared.
© Richard Cotter
25th July, 2012
Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- IN DARKNESS, Agnieska Holland, David F Shamoon, IN THE SEWERS OF LVOV, Robert Marshall, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter.