In Darkness
W ciemności

Agnieszka Holland returns to the subject of World War II to give us yet another film about a heroic gentile saving a group of Jews from the Nazis.  This time it is a lowly Polish sewage worker who successfully hides a dozen people in the city of Lvov’s underground septic system.  Like Schindler's List and The Diary of Anne Frank, this is a true story about Jews who managed to survive, and some will complain that by focusing on these tales of survival, the true story of the Holocaust--one of extermination--will be clouded.  That, plus the fact that most of this film takes place in a dark and disgusting literal shit-hole, made In Darkness fairly low on my list of can’t-miss films of 2011.  However, I’m quite glad I made it to the theatre to see the movie because it is a very strong picture, primarily in its focus on the lives of those in hiding.

The main story of Leopold Socha (the excellent Robert Wieckiewicz) is gripping.  He is the man taking the risks, and most of the suspense centers around whether or not he will be discovered, and what other ways his actions might ruin his life.  But it is the lives of the Jews living in the sewer that are explored with real depth and distinction--despite the fact that we can barely make out the different characters as they are mostly covered in muck and shrouded “in darkness.”  Not only is their fear of discovery, the claustrophobia of their surroundings and the degradation of their situation explored, but Holland and screenwriter David F. Shamoon are able to show us the passion, pettiness, boredom, sexuality, intellect, honor and adaptability that all human beings bring with them to even the worst of circumstances.

This is a long film and one that is never much fun to look at, but Holland uses both of these potentially distancing factors to bring the audience much closer to understanding what this must have been like than I would have thought a film could.  The dramatic spine of the story, Socha’s transformation from a self-interested opportunist to a righteous individual, is subtler and more convincing that the similar arc in Schindler's List, and while this film lacks the scope and cinematic power of that film, it should not be dismissed in a been-there-done-that, don’t-need-to-see-this-again fashion.  If so, audiences will be missing out on a very inspiring true-life story.

By making major films from of these footnotes to the history of the Holocaust, I do not believe filmmakers are doing that history a disservice.  After all, while the story of the Holocaust was indeed a story of extermination and murder, it is also a story of how a people and culture managed to survive this ultimate horror.  In Darkness provides us a glimpse of how this was done--not so much by the heroic acts of a gentile but by the strength and determination of the Jews themselves.