Review: "Kapò" (1961)

I was researching the background on this film and found surprisingly little details. What I did find hardly does “Kapò” justice. Verbatim, the plot summary reads thus on IMDb Pro : “A young Jewish girl leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp.”

This almost makes me want to vomit with rage.

Over the past few decades we’ve seen some admirable work, practically all of which is meant to lionize the efforts of Jews and other 'undesirables' who fought back against Nazi tyranny. Recently there was Edward Zwick’s stilted melodrama “Defiance”. David Arquette touched the surface in “The Grey Zone”. Even the major networks have had their shot, from CBS’s “Escape from Sobibor” in 1987 to NBC’s “Uprising” (complete with David Schwimmer) in 2001. And while the intentions of the filmmakers could not be better, more often than not these works suffer from what I like to call ‘sentimental propaganda’.

Many of the films that deal with the Holocaust nowadays do not wish to examine anything but the 'resistance'. It's as though they just want to wash over the complex emotions that allowed events to proceed until six million were left dead across Europe. Like we’d rather relish the sense of accomplishment in a wave of victory fever that we still haven't completely shaken. At best these movies represent a glib understanding of what it was all about. At worst they are a self-congratulation (not a testament) to the human spirit.

"Kapò" is not one of those movies.

Like “The Pianist”, the movie is concerned about survival. Period. Not cardboard folk heroes or romantic notions of morality de jure.

I suppose that is why the IMDb user infuriated me so much. The movie is not about an escape at all. It is about a fourteen-year-old Parisian girl who is torn from her parents at the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau and is—by chance—saved from the gas chambers. In order to stay hidden, Edith (Strasberg) assumes the identity of another prisoner, whereby her transformation from just another inmate to a ruthless monster willing to do anything she can to survive becomes the driving force.

It is a showcase of human weakness and repugnance. And not just in the case of the Nazis either. The focus is always upon those behind the wire. That is what makes the movie such a standout; its willingness to show the ugly side of humanity regardless of status, uniform or language.

Though largely forgotten (and given a surprisingly summary turn in Criterion’s Essential Art House Series), this was director Gillo Pontecorvo’s second feature film and one of the first movies to tackle the Holocaust point-blank.

And I suppose we couldn’t have had a better candidate to tell the story. Unlike most filmmakers today Pontecorvo, like Roman Polanski, actually survived the war. In Milan he served as a leader of armed resistance in a partisan cell. At numerous points throughout his life he brushed shoulders with greats like Stravinsky and Picasso. Schooled as a chemist and trained as a documentary filmmaker, he did not consider himself a revolutionary and his work, though left-leaning, has shown this.

Here, he balances all elements of his canvas, from the political prisoners to the criminals, from Russian POWs to the SS guards. The ultimate result, then, is something more human than purely tragic. It captures a sense of frailty that the brow-beaters will never understand.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to cheapen the contributions made by Holocaust films that have come since then. Nor do I negate the mission of organizations like the Shoah Foundation which attempt to preserve the memories of that time.

But if you’re looking for a glorified memory about victims of the Third Reich then look elsewhere.

Unapologetic, unsettling, suspenseful, gritty and ultimately heart-stopping, “Kapò” is a kind of film that really has the will to lead us by the hand into the darkness. And then has the courage to let us go.

***

Directed by:
Gillo Pontecorvo

Written by:
Gillo Pontecorvo
Franco Solinas

Produced by:
Franco Cristaldi ... producer
Moris Ergas ... producer

Original Music by:
Carlo Rustichelli

Cinematography by:
Aleksandar Sekulovic

Edited by:
Roberto Cinquini
Anhela Michelli

Cast:
Susan Strasberg........................Edith // alias 'Nicole Niepas'
Laurent Terzieff........................Sascha
Emmanuelle Riva......................Terese
Didi Perego.............................Sofia
Gianni Garko...........................Karl