Left Luggage (film)

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DVD cover.

Left Luggage is a 1998 motion picture directed by Jeroen Krabbé.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Plot

While escaping from Nazis during the WWII, a Jewish man buried two suitcases full of things dear to his heart in the ground. The war deprived him of his family, and afterwards he endlessly turns over the soil of Antwerp to find the suitcases, an obsessive compulsion. He keeps checking old maps and keeps digging, trying to find what he lost. His daughter Chaya is a beautiful modern girl looking for a part-time job. She finds a place as a nanny in the strictly observant Chassidic family with many children, although her secular manners clearly fly in the face of their beliefs. One of the reasons she is accepted is that mother of the family is absolutely overburdened by the household, so she stays despite the resistance of the father, normally, an indisputable authority in the family. She develops a special bond with the youngest of the boys, four-year old Simcha, so far incapable of speaking. She encourages him to speak while walking in the park, and it seems that during the upcoming Passover Seder, Simcha will be able to chant the section of the Haggadah usually reserved for the youngest speaking participant - the Ma Nish Tana. However, Simcha's nerves prevent him from singing, and his brothers sing instead. The superintendent of the building is a constant wet blanket for the entire family and now for Chaya. However, as opposed to the observant Jews, she cannot be a victim and is not going to put up with his anti-Semitic tricks, so she fights him, thus exciting the children's admiration and father's wrath.

Unfortunately, walks with Simcha end in a tragedy: after sneaking to the park, he drowns in the pond, chasing the ducks he loved so much. Some in the community hold Chaya responsible for his death. However, in a scene where Chaya goes to the family's mourning service, the mother feels compassion for Chaya and realises that Chaya felt a deep connection with Simcha. As an act of acceptance, the mother - played by Isabella Rossellini - rips Chaya's shirt, which is a sign of a mourner (a sibing, parent, child or spouse of the deceased) in Jewish tradition.