2 hr & 11 min, color, 2013
How
does a war picture become inspiring? How
do you depict the brutal realities of nations and peoples clashing with each
other in deadly confrontation and still lift the viewer’s spirits? How can images of destruction and holocaust
bless the eyes that watch them unfold and lift hearts in hope and
reverence? Where do you go beyond the
apparent, beyond the ugliness and inhumanity and devastation, to find enough of
their opposites to reach the tender core inside all of us, however dormant that
core may lie?
One
way is to place the viewer under the skin of a child, to let us see and hear
and feel by way of the child’s eyes and ears and visceral intake. The widely read novel “The Book Thief,”
written by an Australian named Markus Zu, following the crisis-strewn path that
an elementary school child has to travel in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s,
has been adapted into a motion picture that penetrates as few war films have to
bring us to the hallowed ground of our being and destiny. I cannot imagine a war saga laden with so
many individual deaths striking more upbeat chords.
The
child’s name is Liesl Meminger, a German youth given up for adoption for her
own safety by her Communist mother who is being hunted by the Nazis. She is played as close to perfection as a
child performer can get by Sophie Nelisse.
The story concerns the imperiled life she falls into with her adoptive
parents and the maturing of her spirit and soul over the years of the Second
World War and its traumas.
Four
individuals play a vital part in her unstable and tumultuous life. Two of course are the adoptive parents
themselves. The father Hans (Geoffrey
Rush) from the very start is a loving individual, who seems to connect
intuitively and empathetically with each crisis she faces and teaches her how to
read, approaching her quite playfully, as if she brings out the aging child in
him. The mother Rosa (Edith Watson) at
first is quite stern, not trusting Liesl and resentful of her background but in
time comes to respect her and love her dearly.
Another is a boy her age, a school chum named Rudy (Nico Lersch), who
befriends her the day she arrives and becomes somewhat protective of her until
he realizes that she has as much grit as he does. (Rudy undergoes a metamorphosis of change and
awareness just as remarkable as hers.
Another movie, just as stirring, could be made in which he is the chief
character.) And perhaps most significant
of all is a Jewish fellow named Max (Ben Schnetzer). In return for Max’s father saving Hans’ life
in the previous war, Hans unhesitatingly hides him in his home when the
crackdown on Jews begins.
As
you can well imagine, Max’s entrance into the household compounds the stress
they are already feeling just from the shortage of food, the uncertainty of the
war effort and the scarcity of employment for Hans. To all this is added the danger of detection
and the subsequent imprisonment and possible death for them all as traitors to
the Reich. The crime of hiding Jews was
one usually dealt with by the Nazis most severely. Reluctantly they have to move Max down to their
windowless basement, where it is easier to conceal him but where the dampness
makes him sick – seemingly unto death, when they cannot wake him up. What will they do if he dies? “The smell would give us away” is Rosa’s keen
observation. Keeping him alive with
their very limited resources causes wakeful hours during the night for
everybody. In the meantime, however, he
and Liesl have formed a very special bond, one that draws forth her humanity
and deepens her understanding of the power of words.
Words! That is what the film celebrates more than
anything else. Liesl, forced by her Nazi
leaders to participate with the citizens of her town in a mass book burning,
supposedly to cleanse their nation of corrupting influences, lingers behind, as
the crowd finally disperses, and retrieves a scorched but still intact volume
that catches her eye. Thus begins her
literary education, one further encouraged on the sly by the local
Burgemeister’s wife, whose private library she is given access to when she delivers
the laundry Rosa does for her. Thus is
born her private nickname, Book Thief, coined teasingly by her admiring friend
Rudy, when she begins borrowing from that library quite freely.
Max
acquaints Liesl with a quote from Aristotle when he sees that she has a special
gift for memorization. “Memory is the
scribe of the soul.” This pearl of
wisdom is given special shape in a scene that takes place in a bomb shelter,
where all the neighbors are forced to spend a long fearful night, as the sounds
of deadly warfare are heard doing their worst somewhere not far away. She distracts everyone from their fear and
dread and stone silence by reciting a story she has written herself, word for
word, one that deeply absorbs most of the adults and soothes the other
children, until they fall asleep. She
turns the darkness into light before the dawn summons them all out of their
confinement.
But
let me assure everyone that Liesl is no Pollyanna. This is not a movie on the order of those
ridiculous ones made many years ago in which the child has knowledge superior
to adults and becomes the premature, implausible voice of reason and
reconciliation. Liesl is quite human,
very much a child and at first quite innocent.
She makes mistakes and does foolish things, one of which places her
family in grave danger. She takes some
drastic chances, even breaking a promise of confidentiality. It does not take much coaxing for her to get
into a fight with a school mate. And
when disaster is visited upon her world, she proves quite vulnerable to
grief. A true child of adversity!
The
film has narration, mixed with a lovely score by John Williams, a deep,
soothing, dreamy male voice that sounds deceptively inviting. I have been debating whether or not to reveal
in this review the identity of the narrator, only hinted at throughout the
footage, never disclosed in so many words.
If I did, many would find it difficult to believe me. It would sound incongruous with all I have
said about the upbeat tone of the picture.
So I have opted for leaving those of you yet to screen the film to find
out for yourselves. By the last reel the
voice should have ceased to incite any apprehension anyhow. This unseen attendant’s presence will have
come to seem quite appropriate to the circumstances.
Dramatic
and comedic elements mix quite tastefully at every turn, thanks both to the
directorial skill of Bryan Perceval and the incisive writing of screenplay
author Michael Petroni. It is quite a
story, one that is appropriately intense and suspenseful but one that honors
both the living and the dead in a most unusual and satisfying way. It should be easy to take for most family
audiences, even with its tearful ending.
In case anyone is wondering, the dialogue is in English, not
German. So you do not have to anticipate
the need for subtitles.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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