Plot
A cave exploration in the Ukraine leads to the unearthing of a story of World War II survivors who once found shelter in the same cave.
Release Year: 2012
Rating: 8.0/10 (39 voted)
Director:Janet Tobias
Storyline
While mapping out the largest cave system in Ukraine, explorer and investigator Chris Nicola discovers evidence that five Jewish families spent nearly a year and a half in the pitch-black caves to escape the Nazis. This is the story of the longest uninterrupted underground survival in recorded human history.
Taglines:
An incredible story of strength and survival.
A deeply moving film about how 38 Jews survived the Holocaust in underground caves in Ukraine for over 500 days
Rating: 9/10
As John Anderson of "Variety" rightly notes, "this film defies the
notion that the era has been exhausted of its stories, or the ways they
can be told..." (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948276/). The
interchange between graphic re-enactment, interviews of the survivors
still with us today, and narrative of caver Chris Nicola, elevate this
story from one about mere survival to one about the strength of the
human spirit and the value of life.
Producers Janet Tobias, Rafael Marmor, Paul Laikin, Nadav Schirman,
Susan Barnett, and Zita Kisgergely do more than depict a story. Like
the family of 38 Jews escaping Nazi death camps and ghettos, we are led
by the courageous matriarch of the family, Esther Stermer, into the
deep underground of Ukraine.
In defiance of the myths of science-fiction/horrors about the
underworld, the matriarch teaches us the truth about the worlds above
and below ground in 1940s Europe; the real daemons are to be found up
there, while the crutch of life and human spirit is found down below.
And when the horror from above tries to come down below, it is
confronted with the most powerful living spirit of them all - the
spirit of a mother determined to protect her family.
The cinematography complements the telling of this story wonderfully.
In the darkness of the caves, dimly lit candles bring hope;
black-and-white historical videos and the grey tones from a clouded
over sky infuse reality into the setting of the horror-world of the
above; and the brightness and beauty of the spring blossom in the heart
of the war provide a poetic irony that foretells of a coming
heartbreak.
The detail of the costume design – from broken buttons and worn
shoe-laces to the mud and dirt covered white shirts of the eldest
Stermer sons to the impenetrable headscarf of the matriarch – add more
than mere richness, but a believability that matches the real-life
outfits worn by the cavers.
Finally, the devil is truly in the detail of the hair and head-to-toe
make-up, which give off the festering scent of rot, mud and soak, and
serve as a constant reminder that this is a story of real people trying
to survive a world in which hell had no barriers, and deserved no place
on earth.
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