Desperate Journey

This is a handsome and old-fashioned sort of war movie, which covers very familiar ground, from its depictions of the rising tide of Nazism, to the Cabaret-esque Parisian nightlife scene, to the French Resistance, to the horrors of Auschwitz. All these elements of World War II iconography have been told elsewhere, a little more elegantly, a little less generically. But you can’t fault the sincerity of the storytelling from director Annabel Jankel — whose erratic filmography includes the 1993 Bob Hoskins-starring Super Mario Brothers movie — or a very game cast.

Based on the memoir of Auschwitz survivor Freddie Knoller, the story it tells is both an extraordinary one and one repeated countless times during the war. Freddie (Danish actor Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) is an ordinary, happy young man in Vienna, blissfully oblivious of the rising tide of Nazism approaching his borders, scoffing at the idea that Austria would vote for Hitler in a referendum. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history knows of course that Hitler paid little heed to democracy, and soon the Anschluss turns Freddie into an enemy of the state overnight.

The filmmakers here clearly hold this story close to their hearts.

While some of the depictions of Nazism’s unspeakable evils veer a little too close to cliché (“Why? Because I’m Jewish?” questions Freddie at one point), the slowly-then-all-at-once descent into fascism certainly feels fraught and filled with danger. An escape in the woods turns heartbreakingly deadly.

Somehow, a stateless Freddie makes his way across Europe to Paris, where he hopes to find passage to the UK. In the meantime, he makes friends in a nightclub, where dancing girls bat their eyelids at occupying German infantrymen, among them Officer Kurt (Til Schweiger, who spent Inglourious Basterds fighting on the other side). One of the girls, Jaqueline (Tønnesen’s fellow Dane Clara Rugaard), even bats her eyelids at Freddie, leading to a glossy if unconvincing romance. Later, Freddie is recruited for the French Resistance, with 88-year-old Steven Berkoff appearing as a growly Resistance fighter, mainly there to bark swear words in his inimitable fashion (“You think I’m gonna risk my life for nine fucking francs?” he bellows).

The structure results in a certain lack of tension: the entire film is told in flashbacks, beginning with Freddie in Auschwitz just as the Allies are about to liberate the camp, which makes the ending feel somewhat inevitable. Other films offer more insight and value in speaking to the Jewish experience of World War II, deploying more originality and fewer tropes. But for all the missteps, the filmmakers here clearly hold this story close to their hearts: the remarkable life of a young man forging freedom under fascism. You can understand, given what the world looks like right now, why they might feel the urge to tell it.