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March 31, 2005 - Image 44

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 2005-03-31

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

Arts & Life

Jewish Film Festival

SNEAK PEEKS AND FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE from page 43

"Wondrous Oblivion," from
Great Britain

Wondrous Oblivion

Wondrous Oblivion, by Paul Morrison, opens
promisingly, with Sam Smith amusing as David
Wiseman, an Anglo-Jewish schoolboy in 1960
who is a complete fiend for cricket.
Of course, he turns up for games in spotlessly
proper attire and equipment, but he is utterly
incapable of hitting or catching the ball.
Morrison (who directed the narcoleptic Solomon
and Gaenor) captures the daydream world of a
young boy perfectly and, when the new next-
door neighbors turn out to be a West Indian
family whose paterfamilias Dennis is a great
cricketer of the past (Delroy Lindo), the remain-
der is predictable.
When the film turns its primary attentions to
the growing friendship between David's mother
(a lovely performance by Emily Woof) and
Dennis, the focus on slowly kindling passion is
gratifyingly mature and intelligent. But Morrison
is too
concerned
to make a
statement

"Racism
bad,
cricket
good"
to tell a
good
story. The

result is bland, feel-good treacle.

And in some perverse way, he
clearly was thrilled to be behind
the camera once more. As one
Prisoner of Paradise
of his collaborators says, "I
When the Nazis murdered
think he forgot where he was."
Kurt Gerron in Auschwitz as
. Of course, this is a movie
the war was drawing to a
story that cannot have a happy
close, they ended a life, an
ending, and Clarke and Sender
era and a conundrum.
don't shrink from any of the
Gerron's meteoric rise and
dark, satanic truths of Gerron's
fall in German film, music
life and death.
hall and theater, from
Regrettably, though, they
would-be medical student to
chose to tell his story in so
"Prisoner of Paradise": Kurt Gerron.
acclaimed singer, actor and
much detail that the first half
director, then into exile and
of the film frequently loses
finally to the Thereisenstadt concentration camp, sight of where Gerron and the narrative are
could be taken as a metaphor for the entire
headed. Yet for all that detail, one never has a
Jewish-German experience in the first half of the
sense of him as a performer or director, since the
20th century.
filmmakers chose not to include any clips of sig-
Except for one small but horrendous fact.
nificant length.
When the Nazis wanted a propaganda film
And it is never entirely clear what epic of self-
extolling the salubrious virtues of Thereisenstadt,
delusion allowed him to stay in Europe when so
a film that would be called The Fuhrer Gives the
many of his friends now in Hollywood were try-
Jews a City, it was Gerron who directed. the film.
ing to save his life.
Gerron was the perfect patsy, a Jew who was
The result is a story that might have been bet-
once an acclaimed filmmaker, already on the
ter served by a book and CD than by this well-
scene
intentioned but surprisingly lifeless documentary.
What other choice did he have? That question
Surely, despite his many failings, Kurt Gerron
is at the heart of the BBC-produced documen-
deserves more than this.
tary Prisoner of Paradise, directed by Malcolm
Clarke and Stuart Sender.
Editor's note: For a review of "Imaginal), Witness:
Although Gerron was essentially told, "Work
Hollywood and the Holocaust," one of the Jewish Film
or die," many survivors to this day blame him
Festival offerings that will be broadcast next week on
for the choice he made. "We hated him from this cable station AMC see page 46
moment," says one.
In addition to its Jewish Film Festival screenings,

Michigan Theater
603 E. Liberty Street - Ann Arbor

Wondrous Oblivion
Imaginary Witness
A Little Bit Different and
Mixed Blessings
The Rashevski's Tango

Wednesday, April 20
Thursday, April 21
Thursday, April 21

8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

8 p.m

Cineplex Odeon Theatre
Devonshire Mall, Windsor Ontario

Watermarks
Wondrous Oblivion
Gloom Sunday
Le Grand Role
Unlikely Heroes
The Rashevski's Tango

The Palladium Theatres-Uptown Entertainment
200 N. Old Woodward, Birmingham

Gloomy Sunday
Watermarks
A Journey of the Spirit
Prisoner of Paradise
Broken Wings
The Rashevski's Tango
Isn't This a Time!
Suzie Gold
Wondrous Oblivion
Miss Entebbe
Le Grand Role
The Hebrew Hammer

3/31
2005

44

Monday, April 11
Monday, April 11
Monday, April 11
Tuesday, April 12
Tuesday, April 12
Tuesday, April 12
Wednesday, April 13
Wednesday, April 13
Wednesday, April 13
Thursday, April 14
Thursday, April 14 •
Thursday, April 14

2 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.

Tuesday, April 12
Tuesday, April 12
Wednesday, April 13
Wednesday, April 13
Thursday, April 14
Thursday, April 14

5 p.m.
8 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.

Showcase Cinema West
Flint

Journey to Jerusalem
The Tollbooth
Suzie Gold
Unlikely Heroes

Tuesday, April 19
Tuesday, April 19
Wednesday, April 20
Wednesday, April 20

5 p.m.
8 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.

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