FUGITIVE PIECES
Canada, 2007, 104 minutes, Colour.
Stephen Dillane, Rade Serbedzija, Ayelet Zurer, Rosamund Pike, Robbie Kay, Ed Stoppard, Rachelle Lefevre, Nina Dobrev, Devon Bostick.
Directed by Jeremy Podeswa.
A very moving and elegant film. As the title, suggests, it is a film of the interweaving of experiences and memories, pieces of memory which sometimes elude, which are sometimes overwhelming.
Writer-director Jeremy Podeswa has adapted a poetic novel (and very popular best-seller) by Anne Michaels. It is the kind of adaptation that Anthony Minghella did for The English Patient, taking a novel of impressions and creating a narrative framework while preserving the elusiveness and the allusiveness of the original.
Fugitive Pieces moves from Toronto in the 1970s back to Poland during the war to Toronto in the 40s, 50s and 60s and back to the Greece of the war years and the Greece of the 60s and 70s. The screenplay is written to remind us how we might be doing one thing which can immediately set off a memory of something or someone else. What helps us to do this with great empathy here is the character of Jakob, the young Polish Jew who is taken to Greece and then to Canada where he grows up, becomes a writer and something of a celebrity. He is given greater power by the performances of the two actors who portray Jakob: Stephen Dillane as the adult Jake and Robbie Kay as the traumatised and wide-eyed Jakob. (Both actors are British.)
The memories of Poland, the arrival of the Gestapo and Jakob's loss of his family are dramatically poignant. However, he is saved by a Greek archeologist, a rugged but kindly man, who smuggles Jakob out of Poland to bring him up in Greece. Rade Serbedzija, who is so often a villain or a boisterous character in his films, is warmly sympathetic here as Athos, who takes Jakob with him to settle in Canada after the war.
The picture of Jewish migrants settling in Canada during this period is also a strong theme, especially with Athos' neighbours in the rather grim apartment block. The mother speaks Yiddish as does Jakob; the father is still living the deprivations of the war and there is a strong scene where he rebukes his very young son for not finishing eating a whole apple, quoting how they suffered during the war. The boy grows up admiring Jake (and is played as a teenager by Devon Bostwick, who was the central character in Atom Egoyan's Adoration and as an adult by Ed Stoppard).
Jeremy Podeswa is a literate writer and directs the film with deep feeling and, in the scenes with Athos, with great warmth. Fugitive Pieces is a fine blend of emotion and intelligence.
1.A film of Jewish memories? The war, Poland, Greece? The transition to post-war Canada? The period from the 40s to the 70s?
2.The adaptation of a poetic novel, creating characters, a narrative yet making the film one of interconnecting memories?
3.The title, the effect of the time-shifts? Poland, Greece and childhood? Adult crises in writing? The return to the arrival in Canada? Jakob’s younger years in Canada? The interconnection of the memories? As memory does?
4.Poland and its darkness, the lightness of Greece, colder Canada? Ordinary and businesslike Canada?
5.The musical score, the range of moods, for countries and times?
6.Jake in middle age, his relationship with Alex, the tensions about their going out, his not wanting to socialise? Their break-up? His writing, his working with Athos and the memories of Athos? His becoming a celebrity? His returning to the islands, his being at home and the island way of life? The people? Memories, writing a new book? His return, its success? His relationship with Ben and his wife? Their introducing Michaela, his attraction towards her, the talking, sharing, at ease with each other, commitment? Going to Greece? A future together? Transforming Jake?
7.The memories of Jakob, the Gestapo, his mother hiding him behind the curtain, his love for his sister, seeing her taken away, his mother going? His father’s defence and his being killed? The recurring memories of his family, their being together, the encouragement of his mother, the stories? His love for Bella and her constant reappearance in memories of real life, in his dreams? The trauma, his being told to stay inside, his wandering out, burying himself like the crops, fatalistic? Athos finding him, reviving him, caring for him? The escape from Poland in the car and pretending to the Germans that there was an infectious disease? Jakob and his going to Greece with Athos? The effect and power of these memories? His continually going back, his yearning for Bella, hoping that she was alive – and only finding after Athos’s death that he had constantly made inquiries to find her?
8.Athos as a character, rugged and warm, his being an archaeologist, a Greek? His care, finding Jakob, taking him through the border? The memories of Eleni? His home, helping Jakob to grow up, taking him to Canada, their settling there? The dingy apartment? Yet the luxury compared with the war years? His work in academia, his writing, his friends? Finding a place in Canada? Guiding Jakob into adulthood? His writing – and his dying while writing?
9.The glimpses of occupied Greece? The Gestapo, the people in the village, the woman and her care for Jakob, telling him about Athos and Eleni? The gathering of the people, the stipulations of the Gestapo, the woman protesting – and her being shot?
10.Greece in the decades after the war, prospering, the way of life, Jakob at home there?
11.Canada, the meeting with the neighbours, becoming friendly with them, speaking Yiddish with the mother, sharing their experiences? Ben and his birth, Jake telling the story of the premature birth and how small Ben was? His care for Ben? Ben and his difficulty with his father, his father’s sternness and memories of the war deprivations, the mother more tender? The issue of Ben not finishing the apple and his father’s reaction? Ben growing up in fear of his father? His mother dying, his father’s grief?
12.Ben as a young boy, an adolescent, admiration for Jake? His writing, his marrying Naomi? The continued friendship? The meal – and the invitation to Michaela?
13.Michaela, her work as a librarian, coming to the meal, the meeting with Jake, listening to his stories, her own stories? Sharing, listening, the sympathy, love, with fulfilment of Jake’s hopes?
14.The traumas of the past, broken lives, struggles – yet love bringing the broken pieces together?
