Sometimes films highlight little-known events in their country of origin that wind up catalyzing a re-evaluation of their nation’s history. Finnish director Klaus Härö’s “Never Alone” is shaping up to be that sort of film. It follows the deportation from Finland of eight Austrian-Jewish refugees by the Gestapo during World War II and the work of Abraham Stiller, a pillar of the Helsinki Jewish community, who tried to stop it from happening.
Despite Finland’s uneasy alliance with Nazi Germany during the early years of the war, Jewish citizens of Finland had their government’s protection in spite of some Finnish officials who would have preferred to comply with the Gestapo’s requests to expel them all.
It’s the first cinematic treatment of this subject, which producer Ilkka Matila says was too painful a story for the Finnish state and the entire society to speak about publicly.
Despite Finland’s uneasy alliance with Nazi Germany during the early years of the war, Jewish citizens of Finland had their government’s protection in spite of some Finnish officials who would have preferred to comply with the Gestapo’s requests to expel them all.
It’s the first cinematic treatment of this subject, which producer Ilkka Matila says was too painful a story for the Finnish state and the entire society to speak about publicly.
- 9/29/2023
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Nazi ghouls have figured in plenty of horror movies, whether preserved (1966’s “The Frozen Dead”), newly bioengineered (1978’s “The Boys from Brazil”) or zombiefied (too many to list). Edging close to that terrain, “Burial” revolves around a corpse — the corpse, as far as WWII’s end was concerned — that does not reanimate or otherwise come “back to life,” but poses a grave threat nonetheless.
Not-quite-horror despite its macabre theme and mood, this sophomore directorial feature for Ben Parker is a handsomely produced period thriller that delivers in terms of action and atmospherics, even if his somewhat convoluted story doesn’t maximally pay off. IFC Midnight is releasing the Estonia-shot U.K. production to limited U.S. theaters and on-demand platforms Sept. 2.
A framing device set in 1991 London has elderly Anna disturbed one night by an intruder. No helpless spinster, she soon has the skinhead-looking young perp (David Alexander) cuffed to her radiator.
Not-quite-horror despite its macabre theme and mood, this sophomore directorial feature for Ben Parker is a handsomely produced period thriller that delivers in terms of action and atmospherics, even if his somewhat convoluted story doesn’t maximally pay off. IFC Midnight is releasing the Estonia-shot U.K. production to limited U.S. theaters and on-demand platforms Sept. 2.
A framing device set in 1991 London has elderly Anna disturbed one night by an intruder. No helpless spinster, she soon has the skinhead-looking young perp (David Alexander) cuffed to her radiator.
- 8/29/2022
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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