Voices of the Children

Terezin was the least horrible of the concentration camps, so it follows that Terezin survivor Zuzana Justman's documentary Voices of the Children doesn't pack the emotional punch of, say, The Diary of Anne Frank. The interviews with three survivors that constitute the bulk of the film are wholly dispassionate -- which makes the few displays of emotion that much more powerful. When the three attend a performance of Brundibar, an opera the Terezin children used to stage as a form of escape, the survivors weep at the tale of children overthrowing an evil tyrant. This scene and the one where a survivor reveals she still hides drawings between her couch cushions for fear of losing the artwork say more about the lasting effects of the Holocaust than the interviews ever do. Screens at the Copley Place Sunday the 14th at 7:15 p.m. and Monday the 15th at 10:50 a.m. and 12:40 and 2:20 p.m.

-- Dan Tobin

Back to the Boston Film Festival index