A very moving and thoughtful film and it does so on a very personal level by examining the experience of a young boy. The film flips back and forth from his war experience to his after-war life in Canada.
It deals well with the trauma brought on by war – in this case the Holocaust. This young boy lost his parents and sister to the Nazis. He is forever tormented of what became of his sister who he last saw being forcefully dragged away by the German tormentors. It does make one wonder at the brutality of a people who kill needlessly and never imagine the lifelong suffering that they cause. This is the strength of this movie. This evil is countered by the generosity of his Greek mentor who became his life-long adopted father.
As mentioned the film shifts back and forth between the war years and his time in Canada. The periods when he was a young boy are the most engaging parts of the movie. There are times during the Canadian sequences where the film becomes somewhat mundane. The time spent with his first girl-friend is so superficial (the actress is simply eye-candy) that the movie almost loses course and becomes banal.
Also some of the sequences when he returns to Greece are almost an advertisement for a beautiful vacation. The settings are so luxurious that they start to detract from the main message of the movie.
Also at times the film becomes a little too 'wordy' – there are too many quotations from passages of a book.
Nevertheless this is overall a powerful movie.
It deals well with the trauma brought on by war – in this case the Holocaust. This young boy lost his parents and sister to the Nazis. He is forever tormented of what became of his sister who he last saw being forcefully dragged away by the German tormentors. It does make one wonder at the brutality of a people who kill needlessly and never imagine the lifelong suffering that they cause. This is the strength of this movie. This evil is countered by the generosity of his Greek mentor who became his life-long adopted father.
As mentioned the film shifts back and forth between the war years and his time in Canada. The periods when he was a young boy are the most engaging parts of the movie. There are times during the Canadian sequences where the film becomes somewhat mundane. The time spent with his first girl-friend is so superficial (the actress is simply eye-candy) that the movie almost loses course and becomes banal.
Also some of the sequences when he returns to Greece are almost an advertisement for a beautiful vacation. The settings are so luxurious that they start to detract from the main message of the movie.
Also at times the film becomes a little too 'wordy' – there are too many quotations from passages of a book.
Nevertheless this is overall a powerful movie.