Voyages (****)

Written and directed by Emmanuel Finkiel (1999).

Voyages presents three poignant but unsentimental vignettes of how the holocaust has affected the lives of three unrelated Jewish women. The movie is reminiscent of the style and tone of Krzysztof Kieslowski. Although the pace was nearly uncomfortably slow, it was an excellent movie that lingered and ignited considerable thinking.

Part one centers around a bus tour in Poland. First of a cemetery and later Auschwitz. The bus leaves without Rivka and she is furious with her husband for forget her. She slowly realizes that she needs to cut him out of her life. Part one has one obtusely amusing scene in which a bus carrying a load of Jews from Warsaw to visit Auschwitz breaks down. They are hopping mad they can’t get there.

In part two, a father appears after a 52 year absence. Thought to have died in a concentration camp, he in fact survived but was trapped behind the Iron Curtain for decades. The ties that should bind them have been erased by time and the daughter, now in her sixties, questions his version of events because they don’t match her memories. Yet, she allows herself to accept him in spite of only sketchy and questionable proof of the genealogical connection. Is she desperate or does she simply resigns herself to the situation? We don’t know. Like Kieslowski, Finkiel does not provide clear conclusions.

In part three, elderly Vera accompanies her younger neighbors to emigrate to Israel from Russia. She intends to connect with her cousin, her last know living relative, who she hasn’t seen in 28 years. She quickly realizes that the cousin, now in a home for the elderly, doesn’t need her and has no interest in anything more than a casual connection. No doubt that Vera is despondent about this, yet, she moves on. Vera gets lost on her trip back to the hotel, but, in an inexplicable coincidence, is befriended by Rivka.

Finkiel does an outstanding job conveying the devastation and pain of war without any overt imagery, instead, doing it subtly, showing us how it permeates every day life. He also reminds us that time erodes the past. Memories become is clouded and eventually lost altogether.

Finkiel reminds us that every event brings uncertainty. Whether it is a bus trip, a telephone call or a move to another country, nothing turns out as expected. He also shows how connections between people are often misinterpreted or even entirely imagined. At same time, there appears to be a message of hope in this: There is something over the horizon; we simply don’t know what it will be. Hope is shown to exist in people’s ability to cope, survive, adapt. What he seems to be driving at that we need to put the past behind us, no matter how unjust and horrible is was and to get on with life. Life is too important to waste dwelling on the past. Of course, this is easier said than done.

There is a scene in which Vera makes her way to the beach. Initially, there is the expected frolicking and fun. But eventually, in a very deliberately contrived sequence, the camera pans over stationary figures as they watch a fairly unimpressive sunset. Finkiel’s purpose is elusive, but the scene is memorable.