Dramatic reconstructions are woven with archival footage and interviews.
Herald rating: * * *
Cast: Nina Einhorn, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Chwalibog, Andrzej Brzeski.
Director: Lena Einhorn
Running time: 125 minutes
Rating: M Content that may disturb.
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: The memories of a Jewish woman caught up in the Warsaw ghetto make for a powerful and
occasionally elegiac dramatised documentary
Less a drama than an re-enactment of a family memoir, this powerful, understated film is the work of prolific Swedish journalist and filmmaker Lena Einhorn, based on the wartime experiences of her mother, Nina, a Polish Jew caught up in the horror of the Warsaw ghetto and the post-war pogroms.
It is based on a long interview with Nina, recorded when she was in her 80s, which is used as a voice-over for much of the film.
Events are then illustrated by an artful interleaving of archival footage - a constant reminder that World War II was the first in history to be comprehensively committed to film - and dramatic reconstructions that effortlessly transcend the limitations of scale and budget.
If the story is unremarkable, it is only because it is so heartbreakingly familiar. It is never gratuitously explicit, and the strongest impression we are left with in the final sequences, which document the family's post-war fortunes, is of the indomitable optimism of the human spirit.
"I've had a good life," Nina tells us. "I've been very happy."
And we are transported back to the beautiful scene when, as a young woman collecting mushrooms in the forest, she meets a young German soldier. For a moment, she tells us, they are not German and Jew but two mushroom-collectors. It's a moment she treasured, and everyone else should too.
