"Say something once, why say it again?" - David Byrne
In a statement included in the press notes to Agnieszka Holland's newest film In Darkness, the noted director of Europa, Europa, Washington Square and some key episodes of The Wire muses "one may ask if everything has now been said on this subject." In the word of Omar Little, "indeed."
Based on a 2009 memoir (as well as a researched historical text published in 1991,) In Darkness tells the story of a group of Jews who survived the Holocaust by spending 14 months living in sewers beneath the city of Lvov. It is heartbreaking and harrowing, to be certain, but falls victim to the very thing Holland seems most worried about: it is a retread. Not one of the emotional beats (and there are many) in In Darkness isn't something you've seen before, and probably done a little better.
It isn't for lack of trying. Holland's lead character - the "righteous gentile" to use preferred nomenclature - is somewhat of a low-rent Oskar Schindler. His initial interest in helping "his Jews" initiates strictly from a profit motive. By the end of the picture, he's practically wearing a halo.
Perhaps if I were young and the horrors of the Holocaust were new to me I'd be more moved by In Darkness' drama. Instead I felt like I was "filmspotting." Where's the scene where the young woman confesses to be pregnant? Ah, here's the scene where the young woman confesses to be pregnant. Where's the scene where the town police chief/drinking buddy almost catches our hero red handed? Ah, here's the scene where. . .well, you get the drift.
Some of the most striking images come at the point where the sewer meets the river, a snowbound gate with the promise of fresh air and the threat of being seen.
Only hardest of hearts could ever watch a movie like In Darkness and not be moved, particularly for a person of Jewish heritage such as myself. But as someone whose job it is to see a lot of movies - and to champion the ones that advance the form - I can't deny that it is difficult to work up too much enthusiasm about this one.
