The Book Thief: Words are life!

Most often we are told not to read the book after seeing the film, but this is one film -- The Book Thief that one can safely do that! Both are outstandingly good! 

The Book Thief based on the novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, tells the story of Liesel (Sophie Nélisse), a down-to-earth young girl, sent to live with a foster family in World War II Germany. It was at the grave of her brother,  that she picks up her first book, unwittingly left behind by the grave digger and earns her the unsaid sobriquet of 'the book thief'. She learns to read with encouragement from her new foster father, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Max, a Jewish refugee who they are hiding in the cellar under the house. For Liesel and Max, the power of words and imagination become the only escape from the tumultuous events happening around them. This film is a life-affirming story of survival and of the resilience of the human spirit.

Director: Brian Percival

Film Clip

Her tough manner makes her an object of ridicule in school, but Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch), her classmate, becomes her good friend. However, when Liesel is asked by her stern teacher to write her name on the blackboard on her first day of school, it is obvious that she doesn't know how to read or write.

Along with a very imaginative 'dictionary' painted on the walls of the cellar, Hans decides to teach Liesel to read by using the book she'd taken from the graveside. Eager to learn Liesel is inspired to read more books, which are impossible to find during war. Living in Nazi Germany is hard and the scene where a massive bonfire of any book which is not German was burnt in the neighbourhood square can give a tug at the heart of any rabid book lover.  Liesel waits till the crowds leave to salvage a book out of the burning pile. She also takes the initiative to read aloud, to keep calm during an air raid where the whole town sits in a dark air raid shelter.

Director Brian Percival adroitly tells Liesel's story and has the audience empathising with her life, with its undeniable pathos. Screenwriter Michael Petroni and Oscar-nominated composer John Williams has helped to do this film justice by bringing it from page to screen and giving it just the right tone. Narrator Roger Allam who took the unseen role of death has given the film a three dimensional angle which is eerily just right. Geoffrey Rush is a very lovable Hans and Sophie Nelisse is a delicately perfect Liesel. Surely Markus Zusak is pleased with his book coming to life like this on celluloid. A dream any author would wish for.

 

- Marianne Furtado de Nazareth

12 Years A Slave: Value of freedom

Well, as expected 12 Years A Slave has won the best film award at Oscars 2014. Not that the other films were not competitive enough. What made the difference perhaps was the human touch of the film and the way the director has handled the narration, without allowing the subject to become a heightened melodrama, despite the story lending itself to it.

 

Director: Steve McQueen

Film Clip

The film is apparently based on a real life story and loosely hewed on the book of the same title. The events occur in the mid-19^th century when slavery was considered normal in the US. However, the protagonist in the story had to face a double whammy as he was kidnapped and forcefully made a slave and he remained in that state for 12 years. More than the physical pain, it is the humiliation and sheer helplessness he went through which make the audience resonate sympathetically with the theme. That is when one realises how precious freedom is and how devastating it is when freedom is robbed from people who are born free and who believe that they are born ‘in the image and likeness of God’.

There have been several films that deal with the theme of slavery. In fact this film reminds of another classical Amistad which was a poignant tale of slave trade and had a much bigger canvas. (Incidentally, the  protagonist Chiwetel Ejiofor had played a role in Amistad). However, 12 Years A Slave stands out for its straight forwardness sans glamour and for not making it a spectacle of brutality that slavery was, even while conveying the message powerfully.

Full marks to director Steve McQueen. Lupita Nyong'o rightly  deserved the award for the Best Actress in a supporting role. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ