Author Anne Michaels's poetic novel comes to the screen courtesy of director Jeremy Podeswa in this period drama concerning a Holocaust survivor who remains eternally haunted by the uncertain fate of his beloved sister. Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) is an archeologist conducting a dig in Nazi-occupied Poland. When Athos discovers a seven-year-old boy named Jakob (Robbie Kay) hiding near the work site, he smuggles the frightened boy back to Greece and promises to shelter him when the Nazis come
knocking there as well. Having previously witnessed the brutal massacre of his family at the hands of Hitler's henchmen, Jakob longs to find out what fate befell his sister, Bella (Nina Dobrev) -- who wasn't executed with the majority of his other relatives but subsequently disappeared without a trace. After the war, Athos and Jakob emigrate to Toronto in hopes of starting a new life. But even after all these years, Jakob (Stephen Dillane) can't seem to shake the grief of losing his family and not knowing what ever became of Bella. Later, when Jakob marries the radiant Alex (Rosamund Pike), the bright-eyed beauty does her best to illuminate the dark corners within her husband's soul. To maintain one's connection to ghosts requires a certain shunning of the living, however, and only when Jakob discovers the strength to let go of his painful past will he finally be able to move forward into the future. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.
Fugitive Pieces is often quiet, lyrical, reflective and underplayed. It doesn't minimize Holocaust suffering--far from it--but it strives, often successfully, to unearth the innate good in people Anne Frank alluded to so eloquently.
Nostalgic, deeply felt, and refreshingly astute, "Fugitive Pieces" is something of a rare bird these days%u2014a big-budget, transnational historical drama that actually justifies its scope and subject matter with more than visual opulence.
Given the source novel, Podeswa's attempt to adapt Fugitive Pieces is admirable in itself. Yet despite an enthusiastic cast, this fails to transport you in the same way. Tying itself in narrative knots, the end result is stilted.
The movie has little dramatic momentum, and its journey is essentially Jakob's incremental acceptance of his fate. But Dillane and the writer-director Jeremy Podeswa create such a compelling central character that it hardly matters.
His journey towards peace of mind involves lots of lyrical philosophising, which presumably comes straight from the film's source novel, by Anne Michaels, and doesn't lend itself to dramatisation, despite Dillane's typically intelligent performance.
Anne Michael's complex, poetic novel is here adapted into a stolid, somewhat po-faced film, but one that still manages to tease some affecting drama out of its scholarly premise.
But while there's life, there's hope, and Jeremy Podeswa's delicate, deliberate adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel follows Jakob's heartrending progress from the darkness to the light.
There are fleeting moments of poignancy and poetry, significantly when the script features narration taken almost directly from the novel, but this is clunkily written and poorly edited.
Jeremy Podeswa's tremulous adaptation of Anne Michaels's novel aches with earnest intent and tasteful eroticism, yet it moves as heavily and lugubriously as a prison gate.
mia ap' tis pio entimes, katharies ki eilikrineis synaisthimatikes istories poy mporeis na petyheis sto pani, i opoia an hanei kapoy, einai sti dynatotita tis na sikosei to baros ton filodoksion tis
A Holocaust story about memory, intimacy, revelation, and redemption. My only complaint here was the very slow pace. It really drags its feet. I am sure the pacing worked better in written form, and the movie did inspire me to seek out more about this author. The novel, I am told, is written in prose form, and is as
beautifully written as the story it tells. The movie comes across in the same exact way, and takes some patience to appreciate it, I guess.
A-bloody-mazing. I need this book, the story is as intriguing as it is compelling and it is told in a really beautiful manner. To be honest, I'm kinda sad most of you have picked this as a 'not interested'. I guess it's not for everyone. [review TBC].
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