Steal a Pencil for Me
Directed by Michele Ohayan
Holocaust survival tales have never lack dramatic tension. History is an easy crutch when it comes to the construction of hazardous scenarios, whether they’re profound or facile: Both Schindler’s List and Life is Beautiful build staying power out of their relationships to events beyond their specific storylines. In Steal a Pencil for Me, the new documentary about a couple whose concentration camp experiences were preceded by their romantic entanglement, the survival narrative pulls together an ubiquitous significance, whether or not you actually care about the couple’s romantic adhesion.
Still, the uncertain particulars of their burgeoning attraction inform the overarching tragedy of genocide. “I’m a very special Holocaust survivor. I was in a concentration camp with my wife and my girlfriend,” explains nonagenarian survivor Jack Polack in the movie’s opening sequence. “Believe me, it was not easy.”
But Jack and his wife Ina aren’t the subjects of Hollywood theatrics, and the director, Michele Ohayan, doesn’t try to push their experiences into the realm of metaphor. Living in Holland during the time of the Dutch Resistance, Jack falls for Ina while his flirtatious first wife becomes a distraction. Lumped together in the awkwardly perilous situation mentioned above, the trio struggles to work out their strangely amusing difficulties.
Concentration camp accounts are always brutal, discombobulating reports of unvarnished fear. Those in Steal a Pencil for Me are no exception. The filmmaking isn’t in the same league as a vastly complicated exploration of despair like Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, but their shared setting is misleading. Less dreary and poetic, Steal a Pencil for Me has an uplifting, personalized thrust. Letters that the couple exchanged throughout the war drive the record of their account (and supply the movie with its title). They usually contain the sappy babblings of young love, but that humane simplicity offers a genuine sense of sweetness to counter the existential discontent implied by the references to a greater catastrophe.
Ohayan creates a fluid pace, matching the account of the survival with present day footage of the couple lecturing younger generations to raise Holocaust awareness. It might be a form of indoctrination when they self-mythologize as a means of remembrance, but there aren’t many ways to engage with one of the darker moments of the 20th century better than livening things up with a juicy love triangle.
Directed by Michele Ohayan
Holocaust survival tales have never lack dramatic tension. History is an easy crutch when it comes to the construction of hazardous scenarios, whether they’re profound or facile: Both Schindler’s List and Life is Beautiful build staying power out of their relationships to events beyond their specific storylines. In Steal a Pencil for Me, the new documentary about a couple whose concentration camp experiences were preceded by their romantic entanglement, the survival narrative pulls together an ubiquitous significance, whether or not you actually care about the couple’s romantic adhesion.
Still, the uncertain particulars of their burgeoning attraction inform the overarching tragedy of genocide. “I’m a very special Holocaust survivor. I was in a concentration camp with my wife and my girlfriend,” explains nonagenarian survivor Jack Polack in the movie’s opening sequence. “Believe me, it was not easy.”
But Jack and his wife Ina aren’t the subjects of Hollywood theatrics, and the director, Michele Ohayan, doesn’t try to push their experiences into the realm of metaphor. Living in Holland during the time of the Dutch Resistance, Jack falls for Ina while his flirtatious first wife becomes a distraction. Lumped together in the awkwardly perilous situation mentioned above, the trio struggles to work out their strangely amusing difficulties.
Concentration camp accounts are always brutal, discombobulating reports of unvarnished fear. Those in Steal a Pencil for Me are no exception. The filmmaking isn’t in the same league as a vastly complicated exploration of despair like Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, but their shared setting is misleading. Less dreary and poetic, Steal a Pencil for Me has an uplifting, personalized thrust. Letters that the couple exchanged throughout the war drive the record of their account (and supply the movie with its title). They usually contain the sappy babblings of young love, but that humane simplicity offers a genuine sense of sweetness to counter the existential discontent implied by the references to a greater catastrophe.
Ohayan creates a fluid pace, matching the account of the survival with present day footage of the couple lecturing younger generations to raise Holocaust awareness. It might be a form of indoctrination when they self-mythologize as a means of remembrance, but there aren’t many ways to engage with one of the darker moments of the 20th century better than livening things up with a juicy love triangle.
