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Berlinale 2024: Lena Dunham Goes on a Journey to Poland in ‘Treasure’
by Alex Billington February 18, 2024
There’s yet one more fascinating set of dual movies in 2024 – two movies which can be remarkably related in so some ways though they’re solely unbiased, unrelated productions. The primary movie premiered on the 2024 Sundance Movie Pageant in January titled A Actual Ache, written, directed by, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, and it gained the Screenwriting Award at that competition (here is my full overview). The second movie is premiering now on the 2024 Berlin Movie Pageant in February titled Treasure, directed by German filmmaker Julia von Heinz, and starring actors Stephen Fry & Lena Dunham as father & daughter. Each movies contain Individuals touring to Poland, flying into Warsaw, from the place they embark upon a “heritage” highway journey tour round Poland to search out an outdated dwelling the place somebody they know as soon as lived in a few years in the past earlier than fleeing Poland. Each additionally characteristic annoying characters, jokes about vacationers visiting Poland, and journeys to a Jewish graveyard in addition to a Nazi focus camp. They’re each so related it is arduous to not discuss each, though this overview is meant to be about Treasure, I have to evaluate them as tales about related themes.
Treasure is predicated on a real story, based mostly on an precise journey a lady and her dad took, and their experiences touring to Poland simply after the Iron Curtain got here down. A Actual Ache, nonetheless, shouldn’t be based mostly on a real story however it’s impressed by Jesse Eisenberg’s family and his experiences. His movie is type of the other – the making of his movie grew to become his actual model of going again to Poland, as the home they go to and movie at is the precise home his grandmother lived in years in the past. In Treasure, the story’s core is a few man who really went to and survived Auschwitz, and whereas he would not wish to dig up the previous, his daughter does and so she takes him to Poland to see the place his life was spent throughout that (harrowing) time. Each movies have a extra pensive, quiet, humble character attempting to know Poland’s previous, subsequent to a extra annoying, loud, brash character who appears each fascinated by and tired of Poland’s previous. It is a advanced dynamic – A Actual Ache handles it higher, particularly as a result of Kieran Culkin’s character is definitely endearing, whereas Stephen Fry’s character is simply plain annoying & grating, regardless of the try to make him a lovable outdated Polish chap.
Whereas I am not Jewish and would not have a Holocaust connection just like the individuals in these movies, I do have Polish roots and I do really feel a connection to Poland. Nonetheless, my connection to those movies is restricted as a result of I would not have a need to discover Poland on a heritage tour or to discover a connection to the Jewish Poland that existed pre-World Battle II. It is a crucial story to inform, after all, and it’s an intriguing subject to contemplate relating to their grief and ache and connection to a horrible previous, nonetheless it’s one thing that I thought to have already been addressed within the almost 80 years since WWII ended and the camps had been liberated. Why are there two new movies about this very same story showing in 2024? Each had been in manufacturing earlier than the Palestine-Israel occasions in 2023. Eisenberg’s movie, between them, makes an attempt to deal with this heavier theme in a extra clever approach by connecting the pains of recent descendants of Jewish Poles, with the acute ache and disappointment of their previous. There may be an unimaginable speech that Eisenberg’s character David provides in that movie at a dinner that delves proper into this actual subject, whereas there’s a by no means a coherent second of reflection like this in Treasure. It by no means correctly examines and contends with these compelling generational variations.
Maybe one of many key the explanation why Eisenberg’s movie A Actual Ache stands out is that it’s rather more private story, authentically informed because the filmmaker’s personal actual story together with his personal feelings and emotions and considerations expressed by way of the characters and the filmmaking decisions. Treasure, alternatively, shouldn’t be Julia von Heinz’s personal story, she is a director telling a narrative that comes from one other particular person. And whereas she does her finest to competently convey this story to the display screen, capturing the feelings and emotions of her characters, the authenticity would not shine by way of, it feels rather more performative and apparent than Eisenberg’s creation. That is most evident within the 4 lead characters (two from every movie), and the way completely different they’re to observe in every movie, regardless of so many similarities. The largest distinction is, after all, Stephen Fry’s Edek, who’s an precise Jewish Pole that survived the Holocaust, making his return to Poland that rather more emotionally wrought. Nonetheless, Fry is a British actor, who needed to study Polish and placed on a heavy accent to carry out this position. Whereas his Polish is spectacular, the efficiency feels barely off, and never as healthful as mandatory.
As a lot as I have to evaluate these two movies for being so related, they do every have completely different commentary to supply viewers. Treasure is rather more in regards to the ache of moving into the previous, and the way arduous it’s for one to try this; all of the whereas the subsequent era looks like the one approach they’ll totally perceive their household is to step into the previous. Does she come to know her father higher after this journey? The movie did not persuade me of this, however maybe in actual life she did. A Actual Ache is rather more about how these trendy era 30-somethings really feel about that previous, and the way they could haven’t survived the Holocaust but additionally have their very own distinctive pains and struggles as we speak as properly. My greatest grievance with each movies is how poorly they symbolize Polish individuals. In A Actual Ache, they solely ever work together with Polish individuals a few times, for barely a minute or two. In Treasure, lots of the Polish individuals they work together with come throughout as sketchy, sneaky, or oddly problematic individuals. Whereas it could have been a nuanced statement within the true story it is based mostly on, it comes throughout as condescending on this movie, as if no Poles post-WWII (aside from a foyer boy who helps translate and their taxi driver) are good individuals. Having visited Poland a number of occasions, I can say that is simply not true.
Alex’s Berlinale 2024 Score: 6 out of 10Observe Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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