My Mother's Courage
Based on the true experience of playwright George Tabori's mother, German
director Michael Verhoeven's My Mother's Courage tells the story of a
middle-aged woman's strange and haunting encounter with Nazis. The scene is a
relatively cheery 1944 Budapest, where the Nazi deportation of Jews was just
beginning. Returning home from errands, Elsa (played by Irish actress Pauline
Collins) is seized by two old, bumbling Hungarian policemen. After she's turned
over to the Nazis and placed on a crowded train for deportation, the absurdity
is presented no longer as slapstick but as horror.
Verhoeven, who also directed the Oscar-nominated The Nasty Girl, has
been hailed for his ability to incorporate elements of compassion and humor
into a horrific Holocaust tale. But when you consider that Germany had already
occupied Hungary, Jews were wearing stars on their chest, and Elsa's husband
was locked away in prison, some of the initial lightheartedness seems
historically misplaced. Nonetheless, My Mother's Courage does grow into
a chilling story of an all-too trusting woman trying to understand human evil.
Certainly, the random, almost flippant, manner in which an SS commandant
eventually frees Elsa while sending others off to their deaths makes this task
impossible for anyone -- including the 80-year-old Tabori, who appears
throughout as an invisible observer -- to comprehend. At the Coolidge
Corner.
-- Mark Bazer
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