"The Juggler" with Kirk Douglas (1953)

 

This was my first time seeing this film. I had never heard of it before today. It was posted on You Tube 5 days ago. Kirk Douglas plays Hans Müller, a displaced German freed from the Concentration Camps. It is 1949 and he arrives in the newly formed State of Israel.

Before the war he was a famous juggler and ventriloquist in Germany. He thought his fame would shield him from the Nuremberg Laws and all that followed. So he stayed. And paid the price. 

Now, in Israel, and in a Camp for newly arrived Refugees, he initially mistakes a woman for his deceased wife. He doesn't adjust well to the camp, or the attempts to assimilate him into society. He flees the camp and sets off to see the outside. 

What happens next is the story of a man who has been traumatized and now becomes hunted in a new land where he is supposed to be accepted. It is a gripping film. And Kirk Douglas is perfect in his role, along with all the rest of the cast. I highly recommend this film.

"Ida" - A Film by Pawel Pawlikowwski (2015) Polish

In this film from Poland, Agata Trzebuchowska  plays the role of Anna , a novitiate nun in 1960s Poland. She is about to take her vows when she is summoned by the Mother Superior and instructed to go home to visit her only living relative; her mother’s sister. When Anna meets the woman who is her Aunt she is perplexed as to just why she is there.  Aunt Wanda, played by Agata Kulesza, works as a judge for the Polish Government and informs Anna that she is a Jew, just as her mother was.

When the Nazis took over Poland they didn’t have too much trouble convincing the people to turn on the Jews. The Catholic Church did hide many of the children of the Jews who were transported to death camps. But they raised them as Catholics to protect them. When the war ended many were never told of their true identities. The Polish people were not very interested in giving back the properties which they had acquired after the Jews were expelled.

But some churches let God decide the issue by releasing the refugee children and requiring them to go back home before making the decision whether to remain a Christian or return to the religion of their birth. Anna’s story; although fictitious; is emblematic of those stories. The film is starkly realistic in it’s filming. Poland of the early 1960’s was a bleak place under Communist rule and the film captures that expertly.

There is a lot to learn from this film about people and how they act under extraordinary circumstances. After briefly tasting some odf the outside world which she has missed while in the convent, Anna must finally make a choice for her future based on the experiences of her past.

"The Pawnbroker" with Rod Steiger (1965)

Very few actors ever hone their craft to the knife’s edge the way Rod Steiger did. Bogart, DeNiro, even Denzel Washington are all recognizable as themselves in most films. Steiger was on a par with Frederic March, another actor with that chameleon like quality which enabled the viewer to suddenly go, “Hey, isn’t that (insert name here)?” half way through a film, and still not be sure it was until the final credits rolled. Walter Huston had that same magic. He was tall, about 6’2”, yet he is always remembered as the wizened little miner in “Treasure of the Sierra Madres.” A giant of an actor, he just played it small.

Rod Steiger’s credits include the corrupt union boss in “On the Waterfront”, the Police Chief in “In the Heat of the Night” (it took him a year to stop chewing gum after that film), the disgruntled juror forced to face his own prejudice in “Twelve Angry Men” and a score of other roles. But more than any other role, his performance in “The Pawnbroker” was possibly his most searing as he portrays a man who has lost his wife and children to the the Nazi’s, along with the ability to love or even feel.

His assistant in the shop wants to learn to be a businessman, just like his boss. He even asks the Pawnbroker to teach him how to be a Jew- to make money- to share his secrets. The Pawnbrokers scathing reply is in the clip below.

There is always a steady succession of people who are down on their luck who come to the shop to pawn the most trivial of their possessions in order to survive. The Pawnbroker dispassionately serves their needs, all the while cursing his own past and the misery of the world about him. He has a partnership with the local crime boss, who used the pawnshop to “launder” the profits he makes from dealing drugs and pimping prostitutes. The Pawnbroker seems indifferent to the misey which supplies the money he lives upon.

Constantly plagued by memories of the concentration camp, he inhabits a world filled with flashbacks to the most horrifying moments of his wartime ordeal. One of those memories involves being forced to look into the building where the female prisoners are forced to work as sex slaves. One of the women he sees is his own wife. When one of the local working girls comes to him with something to pawn she offers him sex in addition to the trade as a way of getting more money.

The Pawnbroker finds himself in a moral dilemma; haunted by the memory of his wife’s ordeal and at the same time facilitating the misery of others in his present day world. He goes to see the crime boss, stating that he did not know where the money came from. The boss just laughs at him and asks him the same question Jews the world over posed to the German people at the end of the war. “How could you not have known?”

In the meantime his assistant has taken the Pawnbroker at his word that money is all that matters if you want to get ahead in the world. You must have it at any cost. So, he decides to help some local hoods rob the pawnshop, where the Pawnbroker keeps some of the laundered money from the crime boss. There is to be no killing. That’s the plan.

But in the end there is always killing. Nobody gets out alive, even if they sometimes are still walking and breathing. This is an intense and moving drama about the human condition and the lines we draw to identify ourselves; and others; as good or evil. And, sometimes we find that they are both just different sides of the same coin.

With a great script from a great book, directed by Sidney Pollack and filmed in a gritty New York City, this film makes good use of the soundtrack by Quincy Jones as it navigates the question of morality which we all must face at one time or another; “Am I a good person; or a bad one?”

"Where the Wind Leads" by Vinh Chung (2014)

This is the story of one family’s 11,000 mile journey from South Vietnam to America by way of Malaysia and the hardships; and miracles; they endured during their 5 month trip by land, sea and air. The Chung family was very well fixed in South Vietnam at the time of the war. Hard work and sacrifice had made them the equivalent of millionaires in the rice and importation business. Then the hard times came as Vietnam fell to the Communists.

The book is at once a memoir; a history; and a cultural overview of the differences between Asian – Americans. It’s also an adventure; and in the end it is a love story on several levels as well. In short; this is one helluva book.

Vinh Chung recounts his journey from childhood in a war torn Vietnam; the downfall of South Vietnam; and his family’s flight to America by way of Malaysia. The Chungs’ are a Chinese family, and the story of how the authors’ grandparents amassed a fortune is fascinating enough on its own. But throw in the risk that it took to leave Vietnam; after being stripped of everything they worked so hard for; and you have a riveting account of the immigrant experience in the late 20^th century. And it’s not a pretty picture.

Mr. Chung’s parents and grandparents had built a small empire, beginning with literally handfuls of milled rice which they sold on the streets to get money to buy more. And when that became successful enough to require a truck; they went into trucking. But the empire they built was constantly under threat; from either the French, before the Second World War; the Japanese during the war; and the French again after the war. Then the Communists came, and the Americans came after them. Each used the South as a battleground for their ideologies. The result was the downfall of the South when America left, and families like the Chung’s were left to ponder their futures; and in some cases their fates.

Being Chinese also left the family open to certain prejudices. The Vietnamese were never overly fond of the Chinese; considering them to be interlopers. This is one of the most interesting portions of the book, with the author explaining the customs for marriage and the system of honoring their elders. Each child had a pecking order that was never broken. The eldest was the first hope for the next generation, and that child was expected to reach back and give his siblings a leg up in return.

As refugees the family suffered all of the trials attendant to dealing with smugglers and pirates. They were even cast adrift and left to die by the Malaysian Navy after they were stripped of whatever valuables they had been able to smuggle out of Vietnam. The author’s grandmother had secreted gold and cash in the linings of their clothes, as well as in her wicker chair. But when they find themselves adrift with no water or food, the value of life becomes more important than any worldly riches.

It is around this time that his mother has had a vision of a bearded man in a robe who chooses her family to live. She has no idea who this man is. But she remembers the vision. And, when the family is about to expire from lack of food and water, the father calls out to God for rain and it rains. As a matter of fact it rains so much that their tiny boat almost sinks. When he calls out to God again to make it stop; it does. These are the first steps which the family takes toward Christianity, a faith which will later define their lives in America.

Eventually the family is rescued at sea by a ship called the “Seasweep”, which is run by a Christian organization whose purpose is to aid the Vietnamese “boat people.” Eventually the family settles in Fort Smith, Arkansas; where they struggle to acclimate themselves to a whole new culture. Speaking no English, the father is forced to work menial jobs for minimum wage while supporting 8 children. Compared to his former life as an entrepreneur, this was bitter pill to swallow. 

This is also the story of an over achieving family who came to America by choice, under tremendous hardship. And they have lived the American Dream; from bottom to top. The author is a Harvard educated Doctor; fulfilling his father’s dream. The older kids were almost failures in their father's eyes for having only obtained Master’s Degrees!  

Mr. Chung’s account of meeting his future wife; who is Korean; and the struggle they both faced in trying to come to terms with their mutual attraction for one another is simply beautiful. Neither one had ever been kissed before. This portion of the book is truly a love story which will make you smile and remember your own youth.

I highly recommend this book as a way to understand the problems faced by the average refugee. You will come away with a new respect for the “boat people” in general; even as you recall the immigrant experience of your own ancestors and their journey by boat to the “new world.” And, in the end, you will come away with a better understanding of who you are. This is a wonderful, enlightening book.  

The Night of Broken Glass

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950’s and 1960’s was like growing up in the shadow of the Second World War. To know about the Holocaust is one thing, but to live amongst people who were affected by it; either by a friends family members, who were left behind in Europe and never made it through the war, or the many survivors; or refugees as they were known; who bore the blue inked numerical tattoo affixed to their wrists, was quite another. That tattoo identified them as survivors of the death camps, and these persons were revered, as they had looked death squarely in the eye and lived.

Today is the 75^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass”. This photo shows the shock and fear on the faces of the little boy and his mother, prompting me to wonder if they were Jewish. Most likely they were not; as any sane person of Jewish heritage would have been indoors when this photo was taken after the first night of killing and burning had ended. But shock and fear know no ethnic boundaries, and these 2 people may just be reacting to the world having gone mad; seemingly in an instant; although the storm had been gathering since about 1933. Like Katrina in New Orleans, most people hoped the big storm would never arrive, changing everything.

The toll from the Night of Broken Glass was written up in terms of how many buildings destroyed, how many lives lost and the like. But all of those figures can never do justice to what was really lost in that night of Nazi fueled hatred. The 267 synagogues, stores, and homes destroyed that night at the direction of the Nazis, along with the vandalism of 7,500 Jewish businesses, and the killing of almost 100 Jewish people were just the tangible portion of the damage.

The events of November 9-10, 1938, while police and firemen stood by and watched; or turned a blind eye; signaled the selling of the German soul. And the judgment for that would be severe.

Kristallnacht marked the point of the Third Reich in which vulgar political rhetoric became vulgar acts of criminality. These acts would grow into the largest attempt ever made to annihilate any particular group of people. And that is the point of marking this grim anniversary. In our country today, we have so many hate groups, all engaged in violent and inhuman rhetoric. And that’s how it starts. With a bit of talk, leading people to become jaded in the face of veiled racism and prejudice.

And, what happens later, when it all spirals out of control? You wind up walking down a street scarred by once seemingly innocuous words; windows broken and holding your child’s hand in fear for the loss of everything you have ever known. Especially your own self-respect.