TIFF '23: Sophie Nélisse in ‘Irena’s Vow’

By Abe Friedtanzer

There’s a reason that there are so many films about the Holocaust. The attempted conquest of Europe and the whole world by the Nazis resulted in millions of innocent lives lost and countless others irreversibly altered. Fortunately, there were more than a few people who made the brave decision to stand up for those who couldn’t advocate or fight for themselves. These stories typically make for poignant cinematic tales. The latest is Irena’s Vow, which stars Sophie Nélisse as a Polish nurse who risked her life to safeguard a group of Jews…

Like La Rafle, The Zookeeper’s Wife, and A Hidden Life, this film centers on someone who was not Jewish but who found herself significantly disenfranchised when the Nazis invaded her country...

Irena Gut (Nélisse) is no longer a nurse once she finds a Nazi officer living in her family home, and she is forced to take on whatever new role Commandant Eduard Rügemer (Dougray Scott) wants from her. When she performs well, she becomes his head housekeeper, and uses her position to keep twelve Jews from deportation and likely extermination by hiding them in the basement.

This film, directed by Louise Archambault and adapted by Dan Gordon from his own play of the same name, is based on the true story of Gut, who only revealed what she had done decades after the end of World War II. What it most effectively accomplishes is depicting the way in which non-Jews such as Gut were treated in comparison to those deemed an inferior race. One scene shows Gut’s horror at watching a young Nazi officer who has been nothing but kind and lovely to her brutally murdering a baby. The language used by the Nazis – even the ones who appear less despicable – is cold and dehumanizing, reinforcing the sentiment that those they deem inferior deserve to be wiped out.

In that darkness, Gut chose to be a light, and Nélisse, best known for playing the younger version of Shauna on Yellowjackets, captures her goodness. She takes time to see the Jews as people just like her and to understand why it is that they’re not actually all skilled tailors, a job they’ve been forced into when, like her, they had different occupations before they were stripped of their rights. Gut’s humanity seems instinctive and obvious, yet Irena's Vow conveys the conscious risks she chooses when following this instinct.

Another effective element of this film is the smallness of its main character’s world. Gut is seen only within the homes where she now resides and out on the street shopping for produce to feed the documented and undocumented members of her household; she knows only what she can see and what those around her will tell her. There are moments of suspense in which it seems like she will be found out but this, fortunately, is a story of hope and positivity. Though not groundbreaking or overly memorable for its cinematic style, Irena's Vow is an appropriate tribute to its protagonist and an important celebration of those who see a clear choice between good and evil. B

Irena’s Vow is screening as a world premiere in the Centrepiece section at TIFF. 

Comments

[thevoid99]

Adding it to my watchlist.