In our troubled times of polarized politics and debilitating war, this extraordinary film from an emerging Canadian filmmaker asks how we will heal the emotional wounds that linger after great upheaval.
Some scars never heal and only those who have suffered life-altering tragedies can truly understand what that really means. People like the lost souls found in Paolo Barzman’s arresting masterpiece Emotional Arithmetic.
Susan Sarandon stars as Melanie Winters, a survivor of Drancy, a transit camp situated outside Paris during the Nazi occupation in 1942. In 1945, Jakob Bronski (Max von Sydow), a young dissident held at Drancy, took Melanie and Christopher (Gabrielle Byrne), into his charge. 40 years later, Melanie discovers that a now elderly Jakob, whom she believed had been taken from Drancy to Auschwitz and killed, is still alive. She immediately invites him to live with her and her family on their farm in Canada. Jakob arrives with Christopher (Byrne) as a surprise for Melanie and both must face the truth of the bond between them. The past explodes into the present in an unexpected and tender love story altering life for themselves and for those around them.
Dir. Paolo Barzman - 2007 Canada - 99 mins - Cert 15 - Celluloid Dreams
|
