Over the decades all aspects of WWII have seen a seemingly endless number of real life stories come to light and filmed (Anthony Hopkins starrer, ‘One Life’ being just one recent example) and the latest is Desperate Journey that sees two Jewish brothers having to leave their parents to an inevitable fate in a Nazi overrun Austria. The older brother is sent to America but his younger brother Freddie (Lucas Lynggaard Tennesen) has to get to England under his own steam. That the film opens with him already a prisoner of the Nazi’s and forced with all the other Jewish inmates on a death march at already signals that his hopes of getting to England looks to have failed.
But before we get there the film flits back to when Freddie has to flee from his home to make his way to England but it’s Paris where his plans come to a halt. And they come to a halt in a ‘nightclub’ where he encounters the louche Christos (Fernando Guallar) who purloins Nazi officers into the bordello for which the nightclub acts as a front. It’s Freddie’s fluent German that makes him an asset in persuading the soldiers in and the film flits back and fore between this and his death march where the senseless slaughter of prisoners contrasts with carnal brutality of the senior officers in Paris.
Maintaining a false identity and more importantly hiding his Jewish heritage has Freddie’s work enabling him to earn money to buy a forged passport that ease his passage into England. It’s not the only passage that he intends to ease himself into when he falls for Jacqueline (Clara Rugaard) one of the high end working girls at the club and who herself hides a secret. But threat of being uncovered is a constant threat especially from club’s clients that are the senior officers suspicious of everyone and having anyone carted away never to be seen again as happens with Freddie’s landlady. The sleazy glamour is offset by the grim squalor outside the club.
Directing this is Annabel Jankel perhaps best known for the catastrophic love action ‘Super Mario Bros’ in 1993 and after a decades long absence from feature films she has returned with far more serious and frankly better drama. Written by Michael Radford, whose excellent and moving ‘Il Postino’ now seems a lifetime away, has written the screenplay but Desperate Journey is one of many similar stories that have been seen before and really there’s nothing that has not be seen before.
related feature : ‘Il Postino’ director Michael Radford talks about Massimo Troisi
related feature : ‘One Life’ director James Hawes talks Anthony Hopkins……
Here’s the Desperate Journey trailer…..
