Still from Agnieszka Holland's "In Darkness", photo: Robert Pałka/Fotos-Art/Studio Filmowe Zebra
The film’s protagonist, Leopold Socha - called "the Polish Schindler" by the Italian press - is a sewer worker and petty thief who ends up risking his life to save a group of Jews from the ghetto of Lviv. After premieres in the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, Israel, Australia and the U.K., the 2012 Oscar candidate comes to the big screen in Rome.
With subject matter that has been tackled by directors including Spielberg, Polański, Claude Lanzman and Holland herself, In Darkness takes a new approach to the Holocaust. One difference lies in the film's defying black-and-white boundaries of good vs. evil. This begins with the lead character, Leopold Socha (Robert Więckiewicz), whose actions in saving a group of Jews are surprising given self-professed anti-Semitic views and, of course, his pilfering ways.
Leopold undertakes his good deed in hope of financial gain, then ends up showing a great deal more human sympathy than he might have seen himself capable of. For 14 months, he hides a group of Jewish people for money in labyrinthine sewers beneath the bustling activity of occupied Lviv. The grey areas of morality are further blurred by representation of the group he aids, who are just as weak, selfish and cruel as Leopold. These characterisations are far from typecasts based on national or racial profiles. Those who are persecuted aren't instantly bestowed with any shroud of honour or dignity; those guilty of crimes are capable of repenting and demonstrating degrees of good will.
Socha’s story was originally written by Krystyna Chimer, the last survivor of the group who hid in the sewers. Her book, The Girl in the Green Sweater, her account of the events, was published in the U.S. in 2008. Robert Marshall picked up Chimer's story in 1991 then published his book In the Canals of Lviv. Movie producers wanted to make a film and reached out to Agnieszka Holland. In an interview with Piotr Śmiałowski for Kino magazine, the Polish director said,
I was reluctant to take on the project, I set conditions that were unacceptable to foreign producers. The main one was the language, I didn’t want it to be in English. English is one of the main elements that bothers me in films about the Holocaust, English makes everything so theatrical. English makes the on-screen reality seem fake, and when it’s fake it becomes bearable. If it were in English, it would be harder to transmit the feeling that we are dealing with the horror of that situation […].
Most of the main cast and crew are Poles, speaking in Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and German. "The visual contrast between the worlds above and below ground is handled beautifully and evocatively", A.O.Scott wrote in a review for The New York Times, "and it gives 'In Darkness' the dreamlike quality of a fairy tale." In an interview for the Italian journal Avvenire, published on the occasion of the film's screening in Italy, Holland said it was the most difficult film she's had to make, mostly because of the on-set conditions, especially in the sewers.
The film’s Italian distributor is Good Films. Italy is another in the host of countries screening In Darkness. A month after its Polish premiere, in February 2012, the film premiered in Germany. With its 2012 Oscar nomination (Best Foreign Film Category), the film received broad distribution in the U.S., and in Canada. In Darkness was seen by audiences in the U.K., Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, Austrialia, France and Japan, and comes out in Spain in April 2013.
For more information see: http://www.indarkness.it/, New York Times
Sources: culture.pl
Editor: Marta Jazowska