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.
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