4/10
In Darkness is aptly titled.
This film is incredibly dark, both in a lighting sense and its subject
matter. Based on the book, In
the Sewers of Lvov: a Heroic Story of Survival from the Holocaust, In Darkness
joins a long line of films which document Jewish ghettos during World War II. The
story follows an individual group of Jews who evade the Nazis once the ghetto
massacre begins. The group dug a hole
from one of their small apartments which leads down into the murky mess of the
Lvov, Poland sewers.
The resident lord of the sewers is Lvov’s sewer inspector, Leopold
Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz). He is a blue
collar worker who is just trying to get through the German occupation as best
he can. Along with his assistant, Socha
ransacks houses formerly occupied by Jews to steal whatever he can and sell the
stolen goods to help support his wife Wanda (Kinga Preis) and his young
daughter. One day while working in the
sewer, Socha comes upon a group of Jews who have just completed digging a hole
from the Jewish ghetto into the sewer.
Socha has no love for Jewish people but he has no direct animosity either. In exchange for a hefty sum of cash, Socha
agrees to keep mum about the hole and if the time comes, will help a small
number of them evade the Nazis and find good hiding spots.
Naturally, the storming of the ghetto comes sooner than
expected. The scene of the in-the-know
Jews who attempt to flee into the sewer is ridiculous. They fight among themselves on who should go
first, physically stuff those into the hole who do not want to go, and in a
completely absurd aside, a wife and her daughter refuse to escape with them
because her husband has been cheating on her.
Socha is true to his monetarily purchased word and leads this infighting
rabble to an out of the way location in the sewer.
The sewer maze is an impressive set design with the
disgusting atmosphere to match. It is
incredibly dark, dirty, rat infested, cold, and full of unimaginable
pestilence. However, compared to the
massacre occurring right above their heads, the sewer is safe. Unfortunately, the sewer will not accommodate
the amount of people in their group. Socha
says he can only safely hide 10 of them and in a brutal scene, the financier
and leader of the group choose those 10.
The others are left to their own volition. The group’s leaders are the strong and able
Mundek (Benno Furrmann) and the financier Ignacy Chiger (Herbert Knaup).
The Nazis and their Polish sympathizers know there are Jews
hiding out in the sewers; some residents can smell boiled onions coming up
through their toilets. There is a bounty
for whoever turns them in and if Socha is caught, he will be shot right along with
the captured Jews. The rest of In
Darkness is a series of scenes of infighting amongst the Jews who are
cramped in very tight and disgusting quarters and infighting between Socha and
his wife and Socha and his assistant, who is sometimes in on the scheme.
These seemingly unending episodes of fighting and sniping
become truly tedious after awhile. Scene
after scene of this eventually gets under the audience’s skin and they welcome
the eventual ending after its 145 minute run time. Breaths of fresh air are provided by Mr.
Chiger’s two children who are a welcome respite from the malicious adults in
the room and Socha’s gradual metamorphosis from a financially motivated shelter
provider to a man who realizes he has a soul which cares about these human
beings.
The cinematography and art direction of these sewers are
really remarkable as is the contrast in lighting between the action which takes
place above ground opposed to the events happening underneath. Unfortunately, the script does not match the shadowy
mise-en-scene and In Darkness suffers for it.
This Polish film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign
Film but it is clear why it did not win.
The muddled sequence of events and unending episodic turmoil morphs from
a troubling World War II story to one of near irritation. A more adept script would have catapulted this
film to much more notoriety than it is receiving now. There are a multitude of other World War II
films to enjoy, do not waste your time on this one.
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