Waiting for Anya, directed by Ben Cookson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Toby Torlesse, is a film that falls within a popular World War II sub-genre that focuses on a local conflict between German occupiers and French non-combatants, typically set away from the civilian centers that suffered crushing horror, destruction, and death. Based on a…
“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today” — Ernest Hemingway In its depiction of the life of an Austrian farmer who refused to sign an oath of loyalty to Hitler…
The World War II satire Jojo Rabbit is a daring mockery with war-themed carnage as a surreal backdrop that combines misplaced idolization with an unconventional coming-of-age tale for a young boy. Indeed, filmmaker Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok”) is wading in rough waters with a strange take of unusual growing pains — particularly when his featured…
“For a long time after the war I was afraid of the sky, even of raising my head towards the sky. I was afraid of seeing plowed-up earth. But the rooks already walked calmly over it. The birds quickly forgot the war” — Svetlana Alexievich, “The Unwomanly Face of War” During World War II, the…
A reasonable question many people may raise regarding Sobibor, a feature film about the Holocaust in general, and about a particular concentration camp, in particular, is what can it add to our understanding of the nature of the “final solution” by those that perpetrated it, and those that fell victim to it? It’s true that…
Reinert Kiil is the Norwegian director responsible for the sort-of-okay slasher “Christmas Blood” (“Juleblod”). If that film was a brooding modernization of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” then The House (“Huset”) must be his re-imagining of “The Conjuring.” On the surface it’s an interesting new twist on the familiar, demon-possessed madhouse setup. Two Nazi soldiers are…
Simply put, Who Will Write Our History has an intriguing premise. Set in the World War II and during the massacre of people famously known as the Holocaust, it depicts a group of Jews’ desperate and personal journey to leave behind time capsules, so their pain and suffering would never be forgotten. It’s an interesting…
