 JANUARY 16 • 2020 | 35

Arts&Life

movies

Violinist’s 
 
 Saga

Song of Names melds 
Holocaust, mystery and music.

MICHAEL FOX SPECIAL TO THE JN
T

here’
s a profound question at the core 
of The Song of Names. What is the 
responsibility of a Holocaust survivor 
— or any Jew, for that matter — to those who 
died and to their memories?
That aching existential and practical 
dilemma acquires a different meaning, and 
arguably becomes more relevant, as the gen-
eration that endured the war, the camps and 
the aftermath passes away.
Unfortunately, The Song of Names obscures 
the powerful contemporary ramifications. 
Opting for restrained storytelling instead 
of piercing inquiry, and artful mise-en-
scène (visual and audio aspects) over raw 
emotion, the film looks great and sounds 
great, but misses the emotional bull’
s eye.
The English-language film, directed 
by Canadian François Girard, will open 
Friday at the Maple Theater in Bloomfield 
Township.
The Song of Names is based on classical 
music maven Norman Lebrecht’
s award-win-
ning 2003 book, a novel that reverberates 
with the genocide of Poland’
s Jews. The saga 
begins in London in 1951, when the violin 
prodigy Dovidl Rapoport (Luke Doyle), a 
young man at the time, fails to show up for 
his major concert debut and, compounding 
his offense, vanishes without a trace.
Dovidl’
s shocking behavior is a personal 
betrayal, as well, for the concert was pro-
duced and financed by Gilbert Simmonds. 
A dozen or so years earlier, Simmonds, an 
English non-Jew, had generously and ten-
derly taken the musically brilliant Polish 
Jewish boy into his home until the rest of the 

Rapoports could leave Poland.
That day never came, and Dovidl grew 
up alongside Gilbert’
s son, Martin. The duo 
became close friends over the years.
Martin inherited his father’
s love of classi-
cal music — and then the mystery of Dovidl’
s 
disappearance.
The film interweaves Martin’
s search for 
Dovidl in the 1980s (after he encounters a 
fresh lead at a showcase for young talent) 
with their joint adolescence leading up to the 
night of the concert that never took place.
Interestingly, The Song of Names initially 
foregrounds the competitiveness required 
(of parents as well as performers) to succeed, 
rather than the art, grace and talent we asso-
ciate with the best classical musicians. Dovidl 
possesses the pride, cockiness and ability to 
thrive in that environment; Martin, on the 
other hand, doesn’
t have that killer instinct, 
and he must learn to accommodate the 
young genius who is thrust into his life.
Martin in midlife (Tim Roth) is a com-
fortably married, slightly depressed figure 
whose life consists of nurturing and serving 
far more talented individuals than himself. A 
starker portrait of his malaise, and a stronger 
sense of still-lingering resentment, would 
have given Martin more edge and greater 
force.
When Martin finally tracks down Dovidl 
— I’
m sorry if that’
s a spoiler, but when 
co-star Clive Owen doesn’
t appear in the 
first half of the film, it’s obvious whom 
he is portraying — the former’s reaction 
is unexpected. On one hand, that’s a good 
thing, but we should feel something deeper 

than mere shock — namely, the pain of 
betrayal.
Girard, director of the music-infused art-
house dramas 32 Short Films About Glenn 
Gould in 1993 and The Red Violin in 1998, 
does his best work here with the scenes 
depicting the young Dovidl’
s conflicted rela-
tionship with Judaism once he realizes he 
must accept his parents and siblings’
 deaths 
at Treblinka.
Lebrecht’
s idea that an original piece of 
music could recall and memorialize the 
names of the dead when played — and 
would honor their souls at any time and for 
all time as a variation on the Kaddish — is 
pretty brilliant. It also lends itself to expres-
sion on film, which is the marriage of sound 
and image, and Howard Shore’
s score is 
excellent.
For the viewer who didn’
t lose relatives in 
the Holocaust, and perhaps hasn’
t wrestled 
with the conundrum of an almighty God 
who could allow the Holocaust to happen, 
and for whom 6 million is an inconceiv-
able number, The Song of Names makes the 
ephemeral tangible for a fleeting moment or 
two.
That may be sufficient reward, even as 
one rues that the movie is too mannered 
and restrained. Too polite, in other words, to 
yank us out of our complacency.
Rather than taking us on another sojourn 
into the past, The Song of Names should have 
provoked and challenged us to contemplate 
how we remember those murdered in the 
Holocaust. It is Dovidl’
s burden and our 
responsibility. 

From The Song of 
Names, violin prodigy 
Dovidl (Luke Doyle)

© SABRINA LANTOS. COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS.

