Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

 

This film is based on American writer Jonathan Safron Foer’s successful 2002 novel in which he relates his trip to Ukraine in search of a woman called Augustina. She saved his grandfather’s life during the second world war when the Nazis destroyed the small Jewish settlement of Trachimbrod. In the novel this personal odyssey is told in parallel to showing the events that happened decades earlier making it more an epic story. The author’s actual journey turned out somewhat disappointedly and nothing was really found. For the film adaptation this somewhat uneventful resolution to the search is given a fictional weight that still sits appropriately with the subject matter.

 

The Ukrainian characters are a little more eccentric and the search yields some strong, emotional results. Perhaps in a way this is the version that Safron Foer would have liked to have really happened? The story of Tracimbrod is still represented though in occasional flashbacks.

Played with subdued wonder from behind oversized spectacles by Elijah Wood, the Jonathan Safron Foer of the film is an obsessive collector of family related minutiae plus anything else he finds curious. Each item is sealed in a plastic bag and placed in one of many, many boxes. His trip to Ukraine occurs after his grandmother dies. He is armed only with a single photograph in which his grandfather bears an uncanny resemblance to him (actually it is Elijah Wood in the photo, a slightly distracting idea) and the contact number of a group who helped American Jews trace wartime memories.

The duo assigned to help him buoy up the first hour of the film as director and screenplay writer Liev Schreiber livens up what might be a too sombre story with some delightfully observed faux pas and visual comedy. Matters proceed at a pace reflecting the poor state of the vehicle they are travelling in and the distance involved. Its never too raucous but does make you laugh, notably a scene where the three are stopping in an austere hotel and reveal the equally harsh waitress that Jonathan is a vegetarian. The subsequent scene involving a potato is as good as any comedy.

Alec was Eugene Hutz’ first acting role and he was originally called in to provide some music for the film. It was only after meeting him that Liev Schreiber felt the `gypsy punk` musician would be a perfect fit to play Alex. He proves to be such an asset as he deadpans the mangled syntax of mistranslation and mixes it with cultural references. Throughout he refers to their mission as “a rigid search” having explained right away his English is “not so premium.” He balances Elijah Wood’s often wordless looks of incredulity. Slowly the two come to understand each other and are even friends of a sort. They are essentially approaching matters from a position of opposites- Jonathan interested more in  East European culture while Alex is obsessed with American things.  

Making up the third member of the party as Alec’s grandfather,  Boris Leskin follows a narrative that turns him from crazy patriarch with a tendency to hit his grandson when they clash to a man confronted with an unexpected truth from his past. Leskin who at the time was an eighty-one-year-old veteran of the war (he lost his brother during it) must have felt a special connection to this material and his performance is powerful. Somehow even when the character is being less than pleasant you are still rooting for him. From being unwilling helpers Alex and his grandfather become absorbed in Jonathan’s goal yet what they eventually find surprises them all.

 Honestly, I could watch the three of them – plus the dog of course- all day as they trundle in a barely serviceable car through the Ukrainian countryside and misunderstandings - deliberate or otherwise – gradually evolved into mutual respect. The best signifier of the way that Jonathan has become attuned to this place is how his initial fear of the grandfather’s dog (named Sammy Davis Jr Jr)  turns into a mutual liking by the end. The films’ travails take place to a backdrop of Eastern European music including some from Gogol Bordello, Eugene Hultz’ band and they frame the film as very much of its place providing a unique feel to the proceedings.

As the story draws to a climax, the way the narrative turns from comedy to a darker hue – even if later events take place in a farmhouse surrounded by a glowing field of sunflowers- is masterful. The big reveal in which “everything is illuminated” works more as an emotional reward for the characters than it does as a realistic scenario. You can almost sense the moment when the movie turns off the factual road into the fictional though it is superbly acted nonetheless. I don’t mind it at all though some may find the parallels too neat, too unlikely. What the final half hour does do, starkly yet without over sentimentalising it, is pay tribute to the sacrifices war demands regardless of the circumstances. One moment sees the camera linger on an overgrown field of old weaponry left wherever it was from decades ago. A simple scene in which Jonathan fills two of his small bags with soil from the place were a massacre took place is full of meaning.  And one later development is so unexpected given the scene begins with Alex’s grandfather sitting in the baths seemingly content.  

In what was his directorial debut Liev Schreiber brings a personal history that has something in common with the text- his own grandfather was a Ukrainian refugee and other similarities caused him to option the book right away. A fan of what he calls “magical realism” Schreiber frames the story with something of the feel of Wes Anderson. There are similar efficient but never titled or handheld camera movements from one side of the screen to another. At one point Jonathan is seen looking up at the collection that dwarfs him. The characters speak without great amounts of emotion yet you can sense their feelings under the surface. Plus each of them wears more or less the same clothes throughout. Yet it’s hard to image Anderson ending any of his films with such emotional clout or accessing real life darkness in the way that this movie does. Also, the location views are less heightened ; Schreiber and cinematographer Matthew Libatique present the lush greens and sparse flora as it is giving a strong feeling of place for the viewer. Its neither glamourised nor trivialised. Though shot around Prague rather than actually in Ukraine (save for one day’s filming) the movie highlights the Eastern European countryside or “premium land” as Alex calls it.

History has been unkind to this part of the world and continues to be so; a story like this shows that these wars affect people a long, long time after the fighting ends. A film like this reminds us of what we share. It’s a film in its own space and if you’ve never seen it or nor seen it for a while, it’s well worth your time.