atertainment

Mixed Media

News Reviews.

FOCUS ON FILM

is pleased to announce the

$395
LUNCH
SPECIALS

Served Mon.-Sat. from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm

your choice of:
• Soup and Salad
• Sandwich and Cup of Soup
• Sandwich and Salad

Francesco Rosi's marvelous film,
The Truce, more accurately could be
called "The Reawakening" or "The
Homecoming." It begins in the wintry
hell of Auschwitz and ends in the
heavenly sunlit atmosphere of an
apartment in Turin, Italy. In between
lies the moving story of Primo Levi —
author, chemist and'survivor.
Every film that hovers around the
periphery of the immense black hole
that is the Holocaust suffers the risk of
being eaten whole by its infinite
depth. The ghosts of the survivors,
their suffering and the immensity of
the crime against them cast a dark
shadow over every enterprise that
dares to tackle these themes.
The Truce additionally has one fac-
tor that haunts it, though it is never
mentioned in the film: Primo Levi,
who wrote the life-affirming book of
the same title, as well as the famous If
This Is a Man, committed suicide in
1987.
When we first meet Levi, it is a fog-
laden day in Auschwitz at the end of
the war. The Russians have just arrived
to open the gates to free those left
alive. The film begins in silence with
only the sounds of wind whispering
above a snow-laden landscape. It is
one of the great achievements of this

film that the use of music and sound
mirrors the progress of Levi back into
the land of the living.
Primo is played with an understat-
ed, yet intense, humility by John
Turturro (Barton Fink, Miller's
Crossing), who lost weight for the role
and bears an uncanny resemblance to
the real Levi.
- There are only a couple of brief
moments when Rosi decides to over-
punctuate a moment by having the
camera linger on Levi as he recites a
famous line from one of his books.
Otherwise, Rosi lets the characters'
actions,-reactions and the landscape
do all the talking.
The cycle of the film takes Levi
from the Soviet resettlement camp in
Katowice through a protracted five-
month journey home. The
labyrinthine itinerary takes him
through White Russia, Ukraine,
Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany
and finally home to Turin, Italy.
The story becomes a series of
adventures, misadventures and set-
backs as Levi tries, on a number of
levels, to find his way home.
His first traveling companion is a
strong, independent spirit, Cesare The
Greek (Massimo Ghini), who is the
exact opposite of the ethereal and
intellectual Levi. Cesare teaches Levi

for $ 3 95

Banquet Facilities Available
Saturday Afternoons, Nights and Sundays.
Whether a wedding, shower,
Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Anniversary
or any special occasion,
The Sheik would love to serve you.

Open for hunch ano Dinner 7 -Days

4189 Orcbaro Cake Saab
Orcbaro Lake

248- 865- 0000
5.ax: 248 - 865 - 00'20

8G Detroit Jewish News

John Turturro, right, is Holocaust survivor and writer Primo Levi in "The Truce,"
film being screened this week in Ann Arbor.

—4