Past Life

This film was too powerful to watch straight through. I needed a couple of breaks. Set in 1977, with the coming peace treaty with Egypt in the background, the film chronicles the attempts of two sisters to discover what their father did during the war, as he hid in a basement in Poland. It takes a while for the details to emerge, but it is clear that guilty or innocent, he holds himself responsible for the deaths of his first wife and their young son. The daughter of the farmer who hid them also regards him as a murderer. Her son joins the sisters to try to discover the truth though his motives are unclear. Their father's experiences and his feeling of guilt has made the sisters' lives enormously difficult. One persistent theme is whether the sins of the parents will be visited upon the child. The sisters struggle with each other, and one of them becomes seriously ill. The idea that she cannot heal until she can forgive her father and sister may not be medically sound, but it serves an artistic end here because it mirrors the relationship between another pair of sisters and the relationship between the farmer's daughter and their father. There are lots of films about the impact the holocaust had on people's lives. What sets this one apart is that its focus is on the impact the holocaust continues to have in the next generation. Parents' inability to talk about the horrors of the holocaust has left their children little opportunity to understand how this horrific event impacted their own lives. A richly artistic and powerful film.

This movie did an excellent job of capturing the suffering and aftermath of Holocaust survivors and their children. Most movies portray the holocaust or the aftermath, but only rarely link the two together. This is not a happy-ever-after story, but rather a story of living with suffering, anger, and despair, where hope only comes from the search for forgiveness. Since the story is told in the late 70's, the holocaust survival is narrated rather than reenacted, but it is told in powerful memories only reluctantly shared. The movie is a little slow and annoying in the middle because the movie intentionally delays events and holds back information to create suspense. (I was tempted to take away one star because of this delay in the story) However, if you keep your patience, the answers do come, raising new problems for the characters to face and overcome.

Because there was no information about the movie PAST LIFE on Amazon, I was left with the cover art which is Clearly indicates the video plot is about reincarnation! It is not! It is a dark & miserable story about miserable people in nazi Germany. Now I am stuck with an unwanted dvd. That would not be necessary if you'd listed a few words about the general plot. I have learned never to trust Amazon. I looked for some description or summary of the story & there was nothing to be found. But the topic was right on the cover in Large type: PAST LIFE

Bad review!!!

This is a beautifully produced but overly morose Israeli examination of survivors’ guilt and its continuation into a second generation. Writer-director Avi Nesher lays it on heavily. A character quotes (without attribution) the adage that Ezekiel quotes, “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge” -- but the film fails to report or adopt any of the sensibilities of Ezekiel’s complete rejection of the thought. Here, a daughter, wonderfully played by Nelly Tagar, surrenders her fate to a verdict on her father’s wartime actions. Then, protagonists become obsessed with the acceptance of a Polish woman acquaintance whose moral compass is at best questionable. And the film seems OK with all that. Even so, the contrasting sisters, played by Tagar and Joy Rieger, are a pleasure to watch.

I expected more from this movie. The stars seemed to be detached from their material.

It's hard to imagine what the early 20th Century was like in Europe. This was a moving story of ripples. The movie was aptly titled Past Life. Can anyone say that 20, 40 or 50 years ago that they, today, are the same person?

Solid script, terrific acting, a story with a surprising twist which feels real, not contrived. Maybe because this is based on a true story.