LEFT LUGGAGE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Castle Hill Productions Director: Jeroen Krabbe Writer: Carl Friedman (novel), Edwin de Vries Cast: Laura Fraser, Adam Monty, Isabella Rossellini, Jeroen Krabbe, Chaim Topol, Marianne Sagebrecht, Maximilian Schell
Our era in the U.S. has become known as one that glorifies identity politics. Being American is fine, its advocates say, but be especially proud of where you came from. You're African-American, or Italian-American or Jewish-American or Whatever-American. I suppose this makes some sense since nobody--not even Native Americans--originally came from here. Sometimes I think it's overdone. In any case the jury is still out on whether people are really coming out of the closet in droves to celebrate their origins. My impression is that most people, especially the young, like to think of themselves as thoroughly assimilated into the so-called American Way of Life, but in the film "Left Luggage"--which, to be fair has nothing to do with the U.S. but takes place in the Belgium of the early 1970s--director Jeroen Krabbe pushes the idea that young Jewish people who are assimilated into the Belgian culture should secure more of a feeling for their Jewish identity.
This concept comes out of Carl Friedman's novel, "The Shovel and the Loom" as scripted by Edwin De Vries, and centers on an assimilated 20-year-old, Chaja (Laura Fraser), whose consciousness of Judaism is marginal even though her parents are Holocaust survivors. Her father (Maximilian Schell) comes across as eccentric to her because he is obsessed with digging all over the family's home town of Antwerp in search of luggage he buried in the early 1940s when in flight from the Nazis, while Chaja's mother (Marianne Sagebrecht), on the other hand, is in denial about the Holocaust and spends her days weaving a blanket and making pound cake. Because Chaja needs money to pay rent, a family friend Mr. Apfelschnitt (Chaim Topol) secures for her a job as a nanny with a Hasidic family headed by Mr. Kalman (Jeroen Krabbe), whose wife (Isabella Rossellini) teaches her the special rules of the ultra-orthodox sect. Falling in love with the Kalman's four-year-old boy, Simcha (Adam Monty), Chaja is determined to find out why the little charmer refuses to speak and to encourage his vocal chords so that Mr. Kalman can be proud of him.
"Left Luggage" is in not as dramatic or convincing as another Hasidic-centered tale, Boaz Yakin's 1998 "A Price Above Rubies," a far more commercial offering starring Renee Zellweger as an unhappy Hasidic housewife in New York City who years for sexual liberation and the freedom to pursue a career. In fact "Left Luggage" is downright small, more suitable for cable TV or the stage than for the big screen. It might appeal to Jews of all stripes who are curious about how a young, liberated woman would fare in a culture clash with people she had always considered bizarre, and to Gentiles eager to learn more about Jewish culture and the different ways that members of the tribe practice or do not practice their faith. Dialogue is occasionally so faint that it's virtually inaudible. The only true drama occurs toward the conclusion when a heartbreaking event makes Chaja think long and hard about her way of life, an event that teaches her more than she could ever learn as a philosophy major in college.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the way that art follows life. Its director, Jeroen Krabbe, comes from a Jewish mother and Gentile father, and while the maternal side of the family were destroyed in the Dutch Holocaust, Krabbe had for a long time not been aware of the tragic circumstances because the family were too pained to discuss wartime catastrophes. When he came across Carl Friedman's book he had determined to direct the movie version despite his lack of knowledge about the Hasidim. What emerges in the film is a sensitive, heartbreaking portrayal that falls short of gripping the spectator, as the meager story becomes lost on the big screen.
Not Rated. Running time: 100 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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