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FUGITIVE PIECES Send This Review to a Friend
The 2007 Toronto International Film Festival’s opening night film, “Fugitive Pieces,” now going into release, is based on a novel by Anne Michaels. Jeremy Podeswa directs from a screen adaptation that he wrote. The deep emotional problems in this work stem from events during the slaughter in World War II. After Jakob, a seven year-old, sees most of his family killed by the Nazis in Poland, he is discovered by a Greek leading an archeological dig, Athos, who is played by Rade Sherbedgia. Athos takes the lad under his wing, and after smuggling him back to Greece, becomes a surrogate father to him.
The film flashes between its present and Jakob’s memories, haunted by the question of what happened to his sister. Robbie Kay is terrific in the memory scenes involving Jakob as a youngster. As an adult, the character is played by Stephen Dillane in a superb acting job of a difficult role marked by repressed emotions. His efforts at a personal relationship with Alex (Rosamund Pike) are troubled because he is not ready to open up despite her eagerness to be close to him. But eventually he finds another woman with whom he can develop a relationship, this time ready to expose his feelings and emotions.
In the version I saw the screenplay shifts an early portion of the book to the end of the film with results that can be debated. I understand the ending has been changed, although I haven’t seen the result. That issue aside, “Atonement” is a mature, thoroughly engrossing film that touches on the nagging issue of the damage that persists as a result of the Holocaust even after the lapse of so much time. A Samuel Goldwyn release.
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