The Island on Bird Street

A Phoenix pick

In a Polish ghetto during World War II, a young Jewish boy (Jordan Kiziuk) is given a copy of Robinson Crusoe by his breezy but knowing uncle (Jack Warden). When the Nazis move in and brutally remove the Jews for relocation to death camps, the boy escapes and in effect re-creates the Defoe novel in the surreal ruins of the ghetto. It seems like an ill-conceived premise in dubious taste, but despite a tepid and trite beginning, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's remaking of Schindler's List as a boys' adventure story grows in power and conviction and ends on a note that is both devastating and triumphant.

Much is due to young Kiziuk's performance -- he's both painfully vulnerable and utterly resourceful -- and to the film's visually stunning, chillingly authentic, ingeniously exploited setting. Some allusions to Crusoe do seem forced -- the drunk scene verges on self-conscious sentimentality. But Island prevails when it goes beyond its premise and touches on the extremes of human good and evil. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday at 6, 8, and 10 p.m., Friday at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m., and next Friday (September 12) at 2:30 and 4:30 p.m.

-- Peter Keough

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