THE LONG WAY HOME A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
Documentaries about the Holocaust: You know the story. Been there done, done that. Seen 'em all. Don't need to see any more.
Wrong.
Although the lessons to be learned from one of the greatest tragedies in human history are so crucial that repeat viewings of old Holocaust films should be required, THE LONG WAY HOME is a documentary filled with archival footage that you most likely have never seen before. Telling the rarely told story of the immediate aftermath of the mass destruction of the Jewish people, the new film by Mark Jonathan Harris presents us with tragedies of which most of us are relatively ignorant. Albeit not on the level of genocide, the incidents are gut wrenching.
With its opening scenes in modern-day Europe, the film shows a picture postcard village that is bursting with a dazzling array of colorful flowers. From this serenity we cut to a bleak, black-and-white picture of the same town when it housed one of Hitler's death camps. The body of the film, which spans the time from the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in 1945 to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, tells the story of one of the "largest illegal migrations in history," as the Jews migrated across and out of the war-ravaged continent. They were supposed to stay put, but they didn't.
The strength of the film lies in the footage that Harris was able to assemble and the stars he signed up to read from the diaries and letters of the time. Morgan Freeman narrates and the readers include Edward Asner, Martin Landau, David Paymer, Helen Slater and Michael York. The documentary composition breaks no new ground, following the traditional structure using historical moving and still images with star-powered voice-overs interspersed with contemporary talking heads.
The Academy Award winner last year in a strong year for documentaries (WACO: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, FAST CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL and RIDING THE RAILS), THE LONG WAY HOME wasn't the best documentary of the year, but it certainly was one of the best. Guaranteed to move your mind and heart, the film does what documentaries are intended to do, bring to you material that you're not likely to see otherwise.
As the American soldiers liberate the camps, they look in disgust at the walking skeletons behind the barbed wire. The soldiers quickly go from staring to vomiting. This causes the ex-prisoners to turn their backs on their liberators. As the famished internees scarf down their food, it becomes too much for them. Unable to stop ingesting, many rupture their stomachs.
Once out of the concentration camps, they are incarcerated again by the Allies into displacement camps. Literal pigsties, these camps have similar conditions to the concentration camps, with the only discernable difference being the lack of gas chambers.
The non-Jewish Europeans are surprised to find they have any Jewish people left among them. "We were hated because we were returned from the dead," complains one of the Jewish survivors. Filled with self-hate, the survivors cannot understand why they lived while their families and friends perished. "Why am I alive?" asks one woman. "I don't know. Maybe this is a punishment."
Stuck in the displacement camps, the Jews resent the treatment given their old oppressors. "It is better to be a conquered German than a liberated Jew," one of the "displaced" men concludes.
Determined to flee their conditions at all costs, the "liberated" Jews migrate illegally across closed borders on their way to a country they could call home. Using cartons of cigarettes as the universal currency of bribery, they move slowly through inhospitable terrain. Climbing mountains and slogging through deep snow, they make their way out.
The rest of the film concentrates on the establishment of the Jewish homeland in Israel. Telling the Jewish side of the story, the movie shows the British, who controlled Palestine at the time, holding a strict lid on Jewish immigration. Eventually the logjam is broken, and Jews flow into the area, where in 1948 their new homeland is officially recognized.
The movie briefly considers the Jews who left Europe to come to America to join their relatives. Once they arrived, they found that their relatives didn't quite believe what had happened to them, and most wanted to hear nothing about it. "You live in American now -- the past is the past," was a typical refrain.
The fascinating but chilling film ends as it began with another burst of color. This time it is at a peaceful looking seaside resort in Israel. But if you look closer, you'll see young men and women in Army fatigues carrying submachine guns -- Israeli built Uzi's.
THE LONG WAY HOME runs 2:00. It is not rated but would probably be PG-13 for war images and would be fine for kids around 12 and up.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews