Remembrance (2011 film)
| Remembrance | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Anna Justice |
| Starring |
Alice Dwyer Dagmar Manzel Mateusz Damięcki |
Release dates |
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Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German, Polish, English |
Remembrance (German: Die verlorene Zeit The Lost Time) is a 2011 German drama film directed by Anna Justice. A German-Jewish young woman and Polish young man fall in love and escape a concentration camp. As the film prologue notes, it is based on a true story, which was that of Jerzy Bielecki and Cyla Cybulska.[1][2]
Plot
The film's story intercuts between a Nazi concentration camp in 1944 and New York City in 1976.
In 1944, Tomasz Limanowski, a captured member of the Polish resistance, manages to aid the resistance from inside a concentration camp, where his slave labor includes supervising distribution of loaves of bread. His resistance task in the camp has been to capture photos of the horrifying war crimes taking place and smuggle out the negatives that will reveal them to the outside world. This is unknown to Hannah Silberstein, a young German Jew in the work camp with whom Tomasz is in love and who has recently discovered that she is pregnant. Every night Tomasz buys off his officemate with a bottle of vodka so that he and Hannah can be alone together in the office in which Tomasz works with the Gestapo and they share bread that Tomasz has stolen for them.
In 1976, interwoven scenes open the story on the day that Hannah Levine, married to a successful man and having a grown daughter, living in Brooklyn, New York, discovers that Tomasz, whom she had believed dead for 30 years, is alive. While preparing for a celebratory dinner party for her husband and doing an errand at a local dry cleaners, Hannah sees Tomasz in an interview on TV and instantly recognizes him as he shares his story about their love with the interviewer. In a daze, Hannah rushes home in reactivated trauma that she had shelved, unable to have her mind on the evening's party and raising the concerns of her family and guests at her distractedness. She desperately calls the Red Cross that same evening for the first time since 1946, when her initial search for him had led to a dead end.
Cutting back to 1944, we see Tomasz implementing a plan for their salvation, with the help of fellow inmates gaining access to SS uniform and paperwork. On the day of the escape, terrified that it is happening too quickly to be fully prepared, Tomasz dresses up as a Gestapo Officer and demands for Hannah to follow him, all the while terrified that he will be exposed as a Polish prisoner. Tomasz walks her to the exit of the camp where another Gestapo comments that he'd like to rape her; Tomasz barely holds his cover and coldly insists that he have Hannah first. The guard, not picking up on Tomasz's limited German, acquiesces and Tomasz and Hannah successfully march down the road until out of sight and run off into the woods. They run for days and weeks, ending up in Tomasz's hometown, at his mother's house. Tomasz's mother does not approve of Hannah as she is both German and a Jew, and furiously insists that Hannah will cause trouble for their family. Hannah, weak and distressed by the outburst, has a miscarriage the same night that a car is ready to take Tomasz to Warsaw, where he must deliver the photos to his brother, who is in the homeland army. With no other option, he leaves his mother taking care of Hannah and tells his neighbor and family friend, Janusz, to take Hannah to his brother's wife, Magdalena's, home where she can hide and it will be much safer. Tomasz assures her he will only be gone for a few days.
Tomasz winds up being gone for a long while. During her recovery at his mother's, Hannah comes to experience the full animosity of his mother when she attempts to have a German officer discover her, but she suspects her motives and hides. Disgusted at this betrayal, Hannah leaves immediately after, taking a photo of Tomasz that his mother had kept framed in a place of honor. Hannah goes to Magdalena's home to wait for Tomasz, but is still forced to hide from the world. When Czeslav, Tomasz's brother, returns home from Warsaw, hopes for Tomasz's return are high but after a month of the three living together, Czeslav has come to believe that Tomasz must be dead, a belief that Hannah refuses to accept. Things are tense but harmonious until Tomasz's mother shows up at their home claiming that the Russians took over her home and soon turns against Magdalena, accusing her of having brought misfortune to the family and criticizing her for letting Hannah live in the house.
Shortly after, the Russians show at their home and take away Czeslav and Magdalena to a work camp while Tomasz's mother and Hannah are left behind. Hannah cannot stay with Tomasz's mother, knowing she cannot trust her, and believes it will be for the best if she returns home to Berlin. She trudges off in winter snow and nearly dies but for a passing Red Cross van that happens upon her.
Back to 1976, Hannah has success - the Red Cross has tracked Tomasz down in Poland. She works up the courage to call him; both are in complete shock that the other has survived. Tomasz initially refuses to speak, but Hannah persists, They speak briefly and Hannah tells him for the first time that she had been pregnant, a revelation too much for her to bear herself, and she who hangs up, promising to call again. A brief flashback reveals that long after Hannah returned to Berlin, Tomasz returns home to find only his mother, who tells him that Csezslav and Magdalena have been sent to a work camp, and she lies, saying that Hannah has died.
Back in 1976, after a wrenching outing of her secret search that anguishes her husband and daughter, her husband encourages her to go see this man who saved her, and Hannah travels to Poland to visit Tomasz, who also has a daughter of his own and is separated from his wife. The movie ends with them seeing each other after Hannah has just gotten off the bus and Tomasz has come by car to pick her up.
Cast
- Alice Dwyer - Hannah Silberstein 1944
- Dagmar Manzel - Hannah Levine 1976
- Mateusz Damięcki - Tomasz Limanowski 1944
- Susanne Lothar - Stefania Limanowska
- Shantel VanSanten - Rebecca Levine
- David Rasche - Daniel Levine
- Lech Mackiewicz - Tomasz Limanowski 1976
- Joanna Kulig - Magdalena Limanowska
- Mirosław Zbrojewicz - Janusz
See also
Jerzy Bielecki (1921-2011)