IN DARKNESS

IN DARKNESS
Written by David F. Shamoon
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Starring Robert Wieckiewicz

Clocking in at 144 minutes, EUROPA EUROPA director, Agnieszka Holland’s latest, and Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee, IN DARKNESS, is no easy journey to endure, especially if you have any difficulty with dark, cramped spaces. This is the story of what are now known as Socha’s Jews, a group of less than a dozen people who hid in the sewers during WWII in Lviv, Poland. Leopold Socha (played on film by Robert Wieckiewicz), a sanitation worker, helped them at first for money, but as time progressed, 13 months of time, he comes to know a more humane side of himself. By taking to the sewers, Holland has crafted a frank, honest look at humanity’s ugliest period.

449. In Darkness

449. (28 Oct) In Darkness (2011, Agnieszka Holland)* 74



A few scenes into In Darkness and it seems like this is as typical as WWII fare comes. Then the story shifts to Jews who survived in the sewers of Lvov for fourteen months. Once underground, the film takes on an intensity and relentless quality that is totally unexpected. Harrowing events and obstacles bombard us, giving a really clear sense of how these people clearly defied the odds.

What really distinguishes the film is its moral complexity. Leopold, the Pole who initially helps the Jews for monetary gain, slowly begins to see the humanity of people he stereotyped. His wife, played by the charming Kinga Preis, gets him to see that Jews are hardly different from Poles, but she initially does not feel helping these strangers is worth the risk to her family. By letting us invest so much in the human drama, Agnieszka Holland makes this an emotional journey rather than a by the numbers historical one.