PJFF REVIEW: Remembrance (B)

If there was ever a relationship to prove the Latin proverb amor vincit omnia, it just might be Remembrance.

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PJFF REVIEW: Remembrance (B)

POSTED: Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 1:16 PM

Filed Under: Movies

If there was ever a relationship to prove the Latin proverb amor vincit omnia, it just might be the one featured in tonight’s Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival spotlight feature, Remembrance.

Director Anna Justice presents a story between two lovers — a Polish partisan, Tomasz (Mateusz Damiecki), and a German Jew, Hannah (Dagmar Manzel) — challenged by every predicament imaginable in 1944 Poland and the post-war years. Violently separated from each other without explanation of the others whereabouts, health or proof of death, the two try to march forward despite the undying torment of what could have been. The film is propelled by the recurring flashbacks to the past from which neither Tomasz or Hannah can seem to unclench their grip.

Unlike other films that are set during the Holocaust, which focus on the high degree of fear and suspense amid concentration camp conditions, Remembrance gets this out of the way within the first 20 minutes. From that point, new, less common challenges arise for the troubled couple. Tomasz’s vindictive mother tries endlessly to remove her son from the dangerous relationship, increasing Hannah’s chances of being recaptured; Hannah is alone, battling pregnancy despite malnutrition and severe illness, and then, after years without communication, both find themselves in tense marriage circumstances that are only further complicated by the inability to part ways with shared memories of the past.

In the final moments of the film, Hannah announces the importance of the type of love for which “you risk your life,” despite its clichéd implications. It’s rare, of course, and without a world war stricken by genocide, it is not the most common element that we see in present-day dramatic romance films. For her audience living in 2011, however, seemingly too far removed from the Holocaust to understand the colossal devastation of the issue, Justice has effectively portrayed a bond for which you risk your life; a love that can conquer all things.

Wed., Nov. 9, 7 p.m., $10, National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 S. Independence Mall East, gershmany.org/pjff.

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