Canada
USA
Japan
21/33
The remarkable story of Irena Gut is told through the eyes of a strong-willed woman and the triumph of the human spirit over a devastating tragedy as she risked her life to save a generation of Jews from the atrocities of the Holocaust. Although this Canadian film was released in far more Canadian theaters than the typical Canadian film, for some reason its distributor, Elevation Pictures, decided not to allocate a significant marketing budget to the film. As a result, the film performed poorly at the box office and was pulled from most theaters after its third week of release. (about 2 minutes) The opening title announces that the events take place on the eastern border of Poland. This region of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union. However, the area is now occupied by German forces. Irena Gut Opdyke: What does it matter who we are? What we do is who we are. BoumMusic by Charles TrenetText by Charles TrenetPerformed by Charlie and his Orchestra. I admit that I haven’t really kept up with current movie releases in recent years, as my knowledge has consisted mostly of ad hoc information based on my streaming services. I hadn’t heard of this movie until I saw it on Showtime a few nights ago, and I knew pretty much the same about everyone involved. I also rarely take notes on IMDB, but in this case I’m inclined to do so given the undeservedly mediocre overall rating, skewed by a review that I find ridiculous in every way. So now on to the movie itself; as others have noted, the acting and production quality can vary, but what a story! It’s more than a little Schindler’s List, but this movie is all the more extraordinary because the protagonist is anything but privileged. Others have summed up the plot well; I won’t do that here, but as impressive as this story is as a story, even more impressive is the moral complexity and humanity of nearly every character, even the Germans, and the filmmaker’s astute insight that the Soviets, while not the main villains here, have almost as much to answer for their actions during this period as the Nazis, which belies the misnomer “The Good Fight” (as do so many other things that have absolutely nothing to do with this film, like the internment of Japanese-Americans, our bombing of civilian populations in Germany and Japan, indifference to the plight of European Jews, etc., etc.). I’m often moved by great cinema, but I have to admit that I get more than a little teary watching the real-life character story sequences that roll during the end credits (don’t miss them!). For me, that gives it a score of between 8 and 9, but the film deserves the benefit of the doubt because the story is great and the overall score here needs to be raised. I note that although this film is not set in Poland, it is set there, which, along with Forgotten Love, is one of the best films I have seen in recent years. Highly recommended.
