If you want a film that shows the human side of the tragedy you can't go wrong with In Darkness.Įven as we near the 70th anniversary of VE Day, the Holocaust remains a sensitive and difficult subject to portray on film.
In Darkness is different of Holocaust movie that focuses on people rather than a broad over view of the tragedy. Though I could have done without the unnecessary eroticism. The cast is excellent and the cinematography is very good. Even in the darkest of time and worst of conditions these people were still able to maintain their hope. The film contains fleshed out characters that make the whole experience inspiring. This makes the film stronger because you're not be focus on hating the Nazi for what the mass killing, but rather focus on the people who had to endure terrible living conditions (in a sewer for several years I might add) in order to live. Whereas other films would merely showcase Nazi killing Jews for us to sympathies with the victims this film chooses to ignore the violence. We get human characters and witness what the Jews had to go through during this time. It's more about the actual people here than actual tragedy. The Holocaust and the war taking place during the 1940s is merely in the background. In Darkness is a dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. It doesn't remind us again that the Holocaust is bad and the Nazi was plain evil, but instead explores the human complexity from the point of view of those who suffered and those courageous to lend an helping hand. We've seen many Holocaust films that seem to focus on the tragedy which is where In Darkness standouts. Based on Robert Marshall's book "In the Sewers of Lvov" this is tough stuff and a powerful indictment of our capacity for cruelty and hypocrisy. The supporting cast is excellent including Weronika Rosati as a woman who's concealing a secret that could jeopardize all their lives and Agnieszka Grochowska as Klara who loses her younger sister when she flees the sewers. A simple man he is reticent to question the authorities or commonly held prejudices. Robert Wieckiewicz gives a great performance as Socha. The "Darkness" encompasses the ignorance, sadism and blind hatred of the era as well as the subterranean world in which a handful of people cling to life. Shamoon and cinematographer Jolanta Dylewska have vividly recreated the horrors of that period in "In Darkness". Director Agnieszka Holland, screenwriter David F. It's risky as discovery would mean certain death for them and their families as well. Polish sewer worker Leopold Socha and his friend Sczcepek are willing to give refuge to the Jews as a means of supplementing their income. Persecuted on all sides by Germans, Poles and Ukrainian Nazi-collaborators there is nowhere to look but below the manholes into the waste and rat-infested sewers running below the city of Lvov. The Warsaw Ghetto has fallen and captured Jews are being shipped to death camps. The very best movie I have seen in years.