90% In Darkness

Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2012 Academy Awards, Agnieszka Holland's IN DARKNESS, is the poor man's SCHINDLER'S LIST, and I mean that as a high compliment. Now don't get me wrong. I think Spielberg made a masterpiece with his Shoah epic, but Holland earns astute emotions and mines similar themes yet in a more intimate setting. Based on the true story of a Polish sewer worker who charged a small group of Jewish refugees a daily fee to squat in the filthy sewers beneath the city. The title of the film is apt, as so much of it takes place in utter darkness. At almost two and a half hours in length, we feel every minute of their intensely long hiding. Like Schindler, our main character, Leopold Socha, played wonderfully by Robert Wieckiewicz, is an opportunist rather than a Jewish sympathizer. In fact, his anti-semitism is much more overt than Schindler's. On the other hand, his wife Wanda, an incredible Kinga Preis, is much more liberal at the outset, but wants to turn her back on the Jews when she fears for her life and that of her family. Their story is so searing, so vivid and unsentimental. It's no wonder I was more drawn to it than to the lives of the various Jews here. While all terrific actors who are given one horrifying scene after another to endure, their plight isn't as layered as that of Socha.There is one exception, and it's played by Benno Furmann, who is the love child of a Patrick Wilson/Josh Lucas bromance. Playing a man who leaves the sewers to escape INTO a concentration camp to save someone's life, he has leading man written all over her face. He easily commands the screen in all of his scenes. One of my all-time favorite critics, Roger Ebert, dismissed this film by saying that we've seen it all before. As much as I respect his opinion, I disagree. Usually films about this period in history tend to glorify the Jewish characters and they make every moment epic. IN DARKNESS does just the opposite. The Jews are just as flawed as any other characters here, as flawed as anybody would be when facing unreal, desperate circumstances. This is not a hyped up film. Something as simple as rainfall becomes an exciting action sequence, but it's played with an ingenious, dispassionate touch that Holland has always brought to her work.

March 4, 2012

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