Title: Run, Boy, Run Director: Pepe Danquart Starring: Andrzej and Kamil Tkacz, Jeanette Hain, Rainer Bock, Itay Tiran, Katarzyna Bargielowska. ‘Run, Boy, Run’ (German: ‘Lauf, Junge, lauf,’ Polish: ‘Biegnij, ch?opcze, biegnij,’ French: ‘Cours sans te retourner’) is a 2013 German-Polish-Frenchco-production of the film director and producer Pepe Danquart. The film is an adaptation of the 2000 novel ‘Run, Boy, Run’ by Uri Orlev, based on true events from the life of Yoram Fridman. It’s the Shoah seen from the eyes of a nine year old: Skrulik is the youngest of five Jewish siblings living in a village near Warsaw. His father will sacrifice himself to spare the young boy from [ Read More ]
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The post Run, Boy, Run Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 1/24/2015
- by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
- ShockYa
The two dozen Holocaust survivors first-time filmmaker Isaac Hertz interviews in his collection of oral histories Life Is Strange vary widely in notoriety — Israeli president Shimon Peres and children's author Uri Orlev appear, along with a panoply of bigwig academics and family friends of Hertz's — but all tell absorbing tales of their experiences during the war and subsequent emigration to Israel or the United States.
Hertz gives equal time to their happy memories, as if to show the horrors they experienced neither erased the sunnier days before nor ruined their lives thereafter. He intercuts the interview footage with archival clips of Jewish life both during festive occasions and in the misery of the camps.
Hertz hasn't framed his subjects' storie...
Hertz gives equal time to their happy memories, as if to show the horrors they experienced neither erased the sunnier days before nor ruined their lives thereafter. He intercuts the interview footage with archival clips of Jewish life both during festive occasions and in the misery of the camps.
Hertz hasn't framed his subjects' storie...
- 1/24/2014
- Village Voice
The story has enormous potential, especially for the children's niche market: In a Jewish ghetto in Poland during World War II, a young boy manages to remain behind, alone and undiscovered, when the Nazis deport the Jews.
Young Alex (Jordan Kuziuk) is forced to survive on his wits, hiding from the German soldiers, finding ways to gather food and water. Hoping his father will one day return, he builds hidden living quarters much like Robinson Crusoe, which inspired the title "The Island on Bird Street". Though the reality of the pogroms is all around him, what he undergoes is more like an adventure than the tragedy of the Holocaust.
However, the script (by John Goldsmith and Tony Grisoni, based on the novel by Uri Orlev) doesn't have the imagination to make use of the story's potential. Instead of an exciting and inventive tale, we get a series of fairly predictable moments of suspense -- Alex is almost discovered by the Nazis, he saves a Polish resistance fighter, he dares to venture out of the ghetto one day. There is no buildup toward a single dramatic conclusion, no underlying theme and no basic change in the character. The end is existential as Alex lies down to die on a grave he makes for himself.
The technical production (especially the excellent work of cameraman Ian Wilson and production designers Norbert Scherer and Alex Scherer) is polished and immensely watchable in a Scandinavian way: The ragged clothes look good, the muted gray and browns are more friendly than spooky, the lighting is like a Danish twilight and even the rubble in the ghetto is somehow orderly.
However, the actors never manage to bring anything special to their flat characters. Patrick Bergin is bland as the father, Jack Warden seems uninspired by his role of the wily grandfather-like uncle, and the Nazis have a tough time looking tough. Kuziuk doesn't quite come across as desperate and wily, and he speaks with a heavy English accent that belongs at an English boy's school rather than in a ghetto in central Europe.
Though the movie is likable and may find a small children's niche internationally -- it is shot entirely in English and the production values meet international standards -- it's not quite up to par for a major theatrical release and the conventional, sometimes clumsy directing by Soren Kragh-Jacobsen will leave adult audiences indifferent. n
ISLAND ON BIRD STREET
Moonstone Entertainment
An M&M Prods. production
A Soren Kragh-Jacobsen film
Director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen
Producer Victoria Lucas
Writers John Goldsmith, Tony Grisoni
Based on the novel by Uri Orlev
Executive producer Rolf Dehyle, David Korda
Director of photography Ian Wilson
Production designers Norbert Scherer,
Alex Scherer
Editor David Martin
Music Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer Bea Gossmann
Color/stereo
Cast:
Alex Jordan Kuziuk
Stefan Patrick Bergin
Boruh Jack Warden
Dr. Studjinsky James Bolam
Goehler Stefan Sauk
Running time -- 107 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Young Alex (Jordan Kuziuk) is forced to survive on his wits, hiding from the German soldiers, finding ways to gather food and water. Hoping his father will one day return, he builds hidden living quarters much like Robinson Crusoe, which inspired the title "The Island on Bird Street". Though the reality of the pogroms is all around him, what he undergoes is more like an adventure than the tragedy of the Holocaust.
However, the script (by John Goldsmith and Tony Grisoni, based on the novel by Uri Orlev) doesn't have the imagination to make use of the story's potential. Instead of an exciting and inventive tale, we get a series of fairly predictable moments of suspense -- Alex is almost discovered by the Nazis, he saves a Polish resistance fighter, he dares to venture out of the ghetto one day. There is no buildup toward a single dramatic conclusion, no underlying theme and no basic change in the character. The end is existential as Alex lies down to die on a grave he makes for himself.
The technical production (especially the excellent work of cameraman Ian Wilson and production designers Norbert Scherer and Alex Scherer) is polished and immensely watchable in a Scandinavian way: The ragged clothes look good, the muted gray and browns are more friendly than spooky, the lighting is like a Danish twilight and even the rubble in the ghetto is somehow orderly.
However, the actors never manage to bring anything special to their flat characters. Patrick Bergin is bland as the father, Jack Warden seems uninspired by his role of the wily grandfather-like uncle, and the Nazis have a tough time looking tough. Kuziuk doesn't quite come across as desperate and wily, and he speaks with a heavy English accent that belongs at an English boy's school rather than in a ghetto in central Europe.
Though the movie is likable and may find a small children's niche internationally -- it is shot entirely in English and the production values meet international standards -- it's not quite up to par for a major theatrical release and the conventional, sometimes clumsy directing by Soren Kragh-Jacobsen will leave adult audiences indifferent. n
ISLAND ON BIRD STREET
Moonstone Entertainment
An M&M Prods. production
A Soren Kragh-Jacobsen film
Director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen
Producer Victoria Lucas
Writers John Goldsmith, Tony Grisoni
Based on the novel by Uri Orlev
Executive producer Rolf Dehyle, David Korda
Director of photography Ian Wilson
Production designers Norbert Scherer,
Alex Scherer
Editor David Martin
Music Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer Bea Gossmann
Color/stereo
Cast:
Alex Jordan Kuziuk
Stefan Patrick Bergin
Boruh Jack Warden
Dr. Studjinsky James Bolam
Goehler Stefan Sauk
Running time -- 107 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/27/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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