Yesterday, April 11, was Holocaust Remembrance Day, and one path taken to insure this horrific event will never be forgotten has been the chronicling of the stories, the nightmares, and the history of the Holocaust on film. From the testimonies of actual survivors documented for the Shoah Foundation to the dramatization of life in the concentration camps in fictional movies, the horrors of the Holocaust have been recorded and interpreted via the cinema. Of course, any mention of Holocaust dramas brings to mind Steven Spielberg’s highly regarded Schindler’s List, which continues to be the barometer for measuring the artistic value of other films with Holocaust subject matter.

Yet, through my job as a researcher and writer for the Facets DVD label, I have discovered a number of films about the Holocaust that I personally find more interesting and compelling. I am fascinated by some of these films because they were made just a few years after World War II and so convey a sense of immediacy in lieu of the retrospection inherent in contemporary Holocaust dramas. Also, these films were made by Eastern European filmmakers, some of whom had personal experiences in which they or family members were interred in concentration camps, giving the storylines a tragic authenticity. Unfortunately, few of these films are known to movie lovers or even mentioned in film histories, largely because they were produced by communist countries that were satellites of the old Soviet Union. Much of the culture of countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary was hidden behind the Iron Curtain and victim to the whims of the communist-dominated bureaucracies that controlled the arts. Even scholars who may have heard of these titles had little opportunity to see them because there was little organized distribution of such movies to the West.  Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union and its satellites, some of these films have been rediscovered and brought to light by companies such as Facets and Polart Video.

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My job at Facets Multi-Media in Chicago offers great access to some of the latest foreign films, documentaries, and other alternative movies. Between our theater, rent-by-mail service, and DVD label, I have seen hundreds of films most people don’t even know exist. Some of them are terrific; some enhance my understanding of the possibilities of film as an art form;  while others belong to the “watching-paint-dry” school of filmmaking. But, at least none of them are directed by Michael Bay, or include geeky male characters in suspended states of adolescence, or feature major stars wasting their talents jumping around in superhero costumes.

 Recently, I have been working with a documentary series from the Czech Republic called Private Century that has become one of my favorite titles. It is not only a moving viewing experience but it really stretches the boundaries of what many think a documentary should be. Private Century is an eight-episode series consisting entirely of home-movie footage from the 1920s through the 1960s.  READ MORE

When my husband was cleaning out his parents’ apartment in Santiago, Chile, after their deaths last year, one of the things he found was a well-worn leather satchel, crammed full of postcards and dinner menus from his mother’s 1938 ocean journey on the Hamburg-Amerika steamer Rhakotis when she and her family fled Germany for a new life in Chile.  She was a teenager then, and among the cards and mementos of the trip were a selection of movie star postcards which she had obviously collected, faces and autographs of personalities probably unfamiliar to most of us, but the stuff of a young fraulein’s dreams.  There were several photos of stars we would recognize — a couple of Shirley Temples, a Greer Garson, a Gary Cooper — but it was those other stars who caught my eye.  Who were these intriguing unknown celebrities?  John Boles I know, but who was, for instance, Lilian Harvey?

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I am always impressed with the biographies that my fellow Morlocks Moirafinnie and Medusamorlock often pull together for this blog site. Thorough, well researched, and entertaining, these bios are far more informative than most of the blurbs found in film encyclopedias or dictionaries. Inspired by their dedication and sincerity, I thought I would try my hand at writing a bit of biography. 

Not too long ago, I saw Milos Forman’s last completed film, Goya’s Ghosts, on DVD. I had wanted to see it on the big screen, but in all of Chicago, it played on only one screen in one theater. It is a crime that big-screen access to a film directed by the man behind Amadeus, Hair, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was so limited, when garbage like The Transformers or Iron Man was shoved down our throats on multiple screens in thousands of cineplexes. Well, I best not get started down that path. 

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In an earlier post, I admitted a fondness for quirky foreign films, particularly foreign versions of popular genres such a science fiction, westerns, or horror movies. (Maybe one day when I am feeling brave, I will explain my love for live-action talking-animal movies.) I am actually more curious and open to foreign genre films than I am to the serious foreign fare that receives all of the awards and acclaim. While I appreciate the Bela Tarrs, Krzysztof Kieslowskis, and Alexander Sokurovs of world cinema, I am entertained by the Julius Machulskis and Vaclav Vorliceks. And, a good genre film can be as artistic and meaningful as a drama — sometimes more so. Like their American counterparts, foreign genre films are too often overlooked because they are formulaic, entertaining, or just plain fun.

In the wake of the media blitz surrounding the opening for The Dark Knight this past weekend, plus the recent news of a remake of Barbarella in which Robert Rodriguez will attempt to rework Roger Vadim’s 1968 cult classic, I am reminded of one of my favorite quirky foreign flicks — Who Wants to Kill Jessie? READ MORE