Train to Zakopané is true love story that lays bare how compassion and intolerance can, even in the most unusual of circumstances, be one. Written and directed from his long-running play by Henry Jaglom and adapted for film together with producer/editor Ron Vignone, the film reveals humanity in the most unlikely of places: prejudice. The film is based on true events that occurred in the life of Henry Jaglom's father as he crossed Poland on a train in 1928. Anti-Semitism was, at that time, rife in much of Europe, especially in Poland. In Train to Zakopané, a successful young Russian businessman meets a captivating nurse in the Polish army on a train-trip to Warsaw and is faced with a life-changing dilemma when he discovers that the nurse he is drawn to-and who is enchanted by him-is fiercely anti-Semitic. Will he reveal to her he is Jewish? Will he move toward love, or will he move toward revenge? The actual train-ride across Poland-and the weekend stopover in the resort town of Zakopané that followed-haunted Henry Jaglom's father for a lifetime.
(Description of the movie from IMBD, see link below)
This movie was something that just happened to catch my eye when I was perusing on Amazon Prime, the one and only streaming service that I have, other than general Youtube (not the enhanced one, although that does not prevent them from asking me almost literally every time I happen to go on it). It was probably the name Zakopané that did it, because ever since visiting this mountain town in southeastern Poland back in 2013, I have wanted to go back. So I took a closer look, assuming that it surely was a Polish movie. Surprisingly, it was not, but it still piqued my interested. Obviously, I decided to go ahead and give it a chance.
It purports to be based on a true story, although this felt so unlikely that I admittedly had my doubts, although I will have to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Most of the movie is in black and white, and it is not exactly what you would call a high budget movie. Still, it is an actual story, which to my mind more than makes up for the low budget part. This is a movie that requires the viewer to have imagination and a brain, frankly, because it is mostly dialogue, mostly people talking. You will not see explosions or shootouts with loud guns here. In fact, this almost has the same feel of a local play production, with the scenery and sets feeling like they are just background. That made a lot of sense, in fact, when I learned that, in fact, it had originally been a play. Again, the focus is on the story, which I appreciated, but might not be for everyone.
Now briefly and without spoilers (a more detailed review with spoilers will be down below), this is what the movie is about:
As the title suggests, much of the movie takes place on a train, headed to (and through) Zakopané. There are three people in one compartment that holds four, Father Alexandrov, played capably by Stephen Howard, invites a young Russian man by the name of Semyon Sapir, who is played by Mike Falkow. Father Alexandrov clearly seems to have high regard for, although that is not necessarily true of everyone else in the compartment. Madame Nadia Selmeczy, an aging actress played by Cathy Arden, seems quite welcoming to the young man, However, that is not so true initially of a young nurse named Katia Wampusyk, played by Tanna Frederick. She clearly has reservations about Pan Sapir, and will admit as much later in the movie.
After this, the movie is almost exclusively all people talking, discussing things. It is a movie for adults, and it requires some imagination and understanding. Personally, I appreciate that. Also, this is an important movie, because at the forefront of the movie is a theme that should have been under much more scrutiny at the time all across Europe: hatred and antisemitism. Playing the blame game for groups which we are not necessarily familiar with. The events depicted in this play occur more than a decade before the Holocaust really got going during the war, and preceded even the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
Given the rise of hatred and tensions of all sorts in western countries in recent years, this movie feels important. We really never can know what is about to happen, or when our own bad behavior of the past might come back to bite us at some unpredictable time and circumstance in the future.
Highly recommended!
Now, below will be a more review filled with spoilers. So if you would like to see the movie and are not yet aware of what the story is, and do not want any spoilers, you should stop reading now.
Okay, last warning:
***** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS *****
If you are still reading this by now, then I have to assume that, for some reason or another, you do not mind spoilers. So here goes:
Katia Wampusyk, the young nurse, feels an undeniable attraction to Semyon Sapir. There is a mutual attraction there, but it is not merely the usual attraction between a young man and a young woman. We get a sense that Katia in particular is inexperienced and is guided by her religious virtues, which have allowed her to stay a virgin to this point. Semyon, a young man, clearly is interested in consummating the mutual attraction, which makes him a rather typical young man in that regard.
However, there is something darker going on. Katia and Father Alexandrov openly express vehemently antisemitic views. Semyon dismisses such views as unenlightened, but his outrage seems to take them by surprise. Katia in particular suggests that maybe Semyon does not understand what kind of impact the Jews have had in Poland, as he comes from Russia. However, he stands firm and says to both of them that they don't know what they are saying. Our suspicions that the reason he is so outraged is, in fact, that he himself is Jewish is confirmed. What we do not know just yet is that he wants to pursue the romance with Katia almost as an act of revenge, so that he could confront her antisemitism with the fact that she has just slept with a Jew after the fact.
Semyon convinces her to get off the train with him in Zakopané, a place which he says he needs to go to for personal reasons someday, although we get the distinct sense that this was not meant for this particular trip. She agrees. The two older train passengers are worried about the young couple having just made such a rash decision. Father Alexandrov almost seems to want to get off the train and search for the young couple, but Madame Nadia Selmeczy convinces him that God's will shall see things through. They then say prayers, and Father Alexandrov looks on in surprise and - dare we hope? - shame once he hears Madame Selmeczy praying in Hebrew. He now understands that she is Jewish, and had remained quiet and uninvolved during the antisemitic tirades which he and Katia had repeatedly engaged in. She also instinctively understood that Semyon must be Jewish, based on his loud protestations and resistance to their antisemitism, a fact which comes into play when the young couple actually reach Zakopané.
Meanwhile, things change once Semyon and Katia grow closer to romantic relations. He realizes that he had perhaps judged her too harshly after hearing her antisemitic rants, but comes to understand that, in fact, there is another softer and sweeter side to her. She is very religious and, in a kind of cliched way, innocent and even caring. Where in the beginning, he had merely wanted to have sex with her almost as an act of revenge, to take advantage of her and then reveal something that will surely cause her pain after the fact, he now develops more serious feelings for her. Meanwhile, she is so innocent that she eventually openly expresses her surprisingly fast feelings of love towards him. He appears to her to be the man whom she has waited for all of her life.
Everything happens very fast for them. The romance blossoms, but we also see that Semyon clearly wants to tell Katia his secret, but somehow remains unable to. Madame Selmeczy had given him a note for whenever he actually does visit Zakopané. It is the name of a prominent Jewish person who is disguised as a gentile living in town. They meet, and Semyon explains his dilemma to this man. He feels guilty about wanting simply to take advantage of Katia in such a crass manner. Then things change after a friend Katia remembers from her time as a head nurse years earlier at a prominent hospital in Zakopané. Semyon seems to take an unusual interest in learning about this detail.
Soon, we find out why. Not only is he Jewish, but his mother had been denied entry into this hospital when her life was hanging in the balance. She died very shortly after that. Semyon has pieces together that Katia is the nurse who had denied his mother entry, because of her peculiar expression that she could smell a Jew a kilometer away. Katia has expressed particularly strong antisemitic viewpoints, and we learn that for her, they were responsible for bankrupting her father, which led to his suicide. So we now know that her hatred for Jews was because, in her view, they took her father away. Meanwhile, Semyon now understands that Katia's antisemitism was directly responsible for his mother being taken away from him.
At the very end of the movie, as the two young lovers (or would be lovers) are standing at the train station ready to leave Zakopané, Semyon finally tells Katia his secret. They both come to understand their unbelievable situation fully. They also both have developed very serious feelings towards one another: a very real love. She understands that her blind hatred of the Jews has led to the death of the mother of the man she is now in love with, and she does not know how to handle it. She picks up her bags and goes to the train. But before she leaves, she runs back to him. They embrace and kiss, crying. She gives him a ring that her father gave to her, and which has tremendous meaning to her, and then leaves, all without a word. Semyon reflects on this, and explains that he never did see Katia again, but never forgot her. In fact, he escaped Europe before the Nazis took over, and lived in Great Britain, ultimately marrying and having children. This story was a big secret that he kept with him until just recently.
Again, highly recommended!
Train to Zakopané 2017 PG-13 1h 56m
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7652190/
No comments:
Post a Comment