A great roadtrip in the Ukraine - with Borat-style humor
Written: Sep 08 '08 (Updated Sep 08 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: Elijah Wood as stoic and strange American Jew; comical language problems; Ukrainian countryside; engaging plot
Cons: Some glitches but nothing too disturbing; some lack of clarity in plot may irk
The Bottom Line: Great chance to see post-Soviet Ukrainian countryside, listen to bad English and abrupt Russian, to consider WWII "scourged-earth" policies and the disappearance of whole villages
frwhiskey's Full Review: Everything is Illuminated
Elijah Wood plays a young Jewish-American in search of his roots in this oddball film, basically a roadtrip back in the Ukraine in an old (GDR) Trabant. He makes contact with a bickering three-generation family who run "Heritage Tours", to take "rich American Jews" around to extinct and burnt-down villages, at a great profit, showing them nothing. The grandfather, Alex, started the business in the 1950's (doubtful if possible under Soviet rule!)
Elijah Wood is a hit from the start, as a silent, white-pallored, black-suited serious collector of family memorabilia. He is obsessed with finding "Augustina", the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. When the troops came to this real-life village, Trachimbrod, about 5000 people lived there; 30-40 escaped the massacre. Later, the village was razed to the ground, so that there's nothing to see down by the river except grass, trees, and one stone memorial in the ground as testimonial to the execution spot.
The odd silences in this film, the endless confusion with the translations, the angry and impatient mood of the Ukrainians, and the resilience of the young American Jew: all comes across as very authentic, as if one could really make such a trip one's self. The food will be bad, the service will be downright malicious (as in the style of that school principal from "Matilda"), and the hotel rooms sparse and grim. The cars will be old and decrepid, and the roads will have no signs. People on the side of the road will be dirty, poor and toothless, completely unable to direct you or your hired driver. Finally, the town (or stetl) you are searching for doesn't exist any more! How's that for a really fun, fun, fun trip in the hot sun?
Alex's grandson, a hip-hop fan in his 20's, insolent, lanky, pallid and bad-humored, is roped into the translator job with our young Jew, so that they're about the same age. The whole family needs the money (about $1200), so there's no backing out of the work. The grandfather, Alex, doesn't want to do any driving, either, and claims he is blind, needing a "seeing eye beach", Sammy Davis Jr., Jr., to come along for the ride. Never mind the American's canine phobia! This dog is demented, to use their words, baring its fangs constantly.
I think that BORAT lovers will feel right at home with this whacko, off-beat film, which lurches between Finnish-style (Leningrad Cowboys Go America) deadpan humor, and sudden deep empathy. The seemingly sole survivor of the Nazi shootings, an old and blue-eyed woman, has all the momentos of Trachimbrod stored in boxes up to the ceiling, all along one wall of her country home in the middle of enormous yellow sunflower fields. She looks like a classic Scandanavian in face and figure, yet was a Jewess, Augustina's sister, from the former Trachimbrod. Some of her life seemed unbelievable - how could she never have been in a car before? The USSR was not that primitive, nor country people so isolated as that!
Alex our senior driver did know her, and thus could even find the dead town, near real-life Lutsk. How could this old Ukrainian "tourguide" have found such an isolated farm house down a dirt track, with the sole survivor of the burnt-down stetl still there? That's the surprise!
Lots of surprise twists near the end,which I will not reveal, but which surprised me. Apparently they do not jive with the book of the same name, in fact, quite diametrically opposed in plot, and the author, Safran Foer, really did go to the Ukraine to find out what had happened to his Jewish family. The book and film are based on reality.
For me, the countryside shown in the beautiful summertime around Lvov (formerly Lublin, Poland) is a shimmering delight. The wretched housing and broken down factories littered about are shown, with children and teenagers hanging around. I haven't been to the USSR since 1989, but it looked the same miserable place I remember it was.
The stark change back to the USA, as our now-saddened Jew returns to New York's airport, is exactly what a new ex-Communist immigrant experiences. Loud noises, action, talking, bright colors, big lights, a plethora of shopping choices, very extroverted and smiling people... what a different world from the former Soviet Bloc countries.
Real Ukrainians may find offense in this film, as it shows a very miserable time in its history, and the poverty of the present.
Worth checking out before or after the film is the website for all survivors of the real Trachimbrod ("Dry Bread" in Yiddish, I believe), now scattered all over the world. There one can see real photos of the people and buildings from before 1942. The utter destructiveness of the Nazi troops as they swept through on a "scourged earth" policy meant that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were killed, including the Jews as well, with whole villages burnt to the ground. Often the villagers themselves were locked in the biggest buildings, e.g. a barn or school, and burnt alive. "Come and See" is a great Russian/Soviet film about that time, full of such scenes from the victims' perspective.
A quirky little film, satisfying in its ending, and certainly making this viewer curious to find the original book.
Was Alex, the grandfather, a Jew or a Nazi? You figure it out.
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