Irenas Geheimnis

I've seen a lot of WW II movies. I've never seen one quite like this. "Irena's Vow" is the story of a real person, Irena Gut, a teenager when WW II began. She was a virgin, from a loving, well to do family. The war began, and she was gang raped, beaten, and left for dead by Red Army soldiers, famous for their rapes across Europe.

Nazis murdered her father. Her family split up She was alone and desperate. She never gave in to self pity, but dedicated herself to saving Jews from extermination. Her self sacrifice, her courage, and her ingenuity put the rest of us to shame. Holy Cow, what a woman.

Sophie Nelisse is almost supernatural in her ability to inhabit the young Irena Gut -- the real Irena's daughter said as much. Nelisse has said that she is not a Method actor, and she was able to shake off the difficulties of the part as soon as she heard "Cut." That's amazing.

I strongly recommend this film. Again, I can't thnk of anything else quite like it.

Following the success of The Book Thief and Yellowjackets, Sophie Nélisse stars in this powerful and sensitive story based on real events. She plays a young Polish woman, Irena Gut Opdyke (Sophie Nélisse), who during the Second World War, hid a group of Jews in the house of her boss: a high-ranking Nazi commander (Dougray Scott) . Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable story of Irena Gut, and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy, as she risked her life to save a generation of Jews from the atrocities of the Holocaust. Who would look for a group of Jews in a Nazi's house?

Irena's Vow(2023) is a biographic film about Irene Gut Opdyke (1918 - 2003) who was a Polish nurse who gained international recognition for aiding Polish Jews persecuted by Nazi Germany during World War II. She was honored as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for risking her life to save twelve Jews.she enrolled at the nursing school before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of 1939. While hiding during the invasion, Russian soldiers discovered her and she was beaten and raped. Originally forced to work in a munitions factory during the German occupation, Gut was hired by Wehrmacht Major Eduard Rügemer to work in a kitchen of a hotel that frequently served Nazi officials when he learned she was fluent in German. The film, which premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, delves into Irene's anguish and fear, her relationship with the commander, as well as the young woman's own will to carry out this heroic act and save the unfortunate people who were relentlessly persecuted. A story of survival and resilience that also spoke of friendship and how, despite the harshness and isolation of life , a good girl helps unfortunate and pursued people at whatever cost. Stories of war survival, particularly the Holocaust, are almost always harrowing and moving, as they require significant effort to faithfully convey the sufferings of Jews who are continually harassed, either in concentration camps or in the dangerous escapes they often made. Those who managed to survive did not remain unscathed, suffering many psychological traumas, often suffering many family losses or personal torture. However, some managed to live to tell their story, which they share with the world to recognize those who disappeared, as well as those who helped them stay alive. Allies and sympathizers also took great risks, resulting in a variety of reasons why they might have refused to be willing to help a Jew hiding from the Nazis.

There is decent photography by cameraman Paul Sarossy, and taking place in war-torn Eastern Europe, the film was shot on location in Konstancin-Jeziorna, Mazowieckie, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Lublin, Lubelskie, and Modlin, Mazowieckie, Poland. There are no major special effects or war scenes, as it is a story that takes place far from the front, although the Jews do eventually find themselves hunted by greedy Polish bounty hunters who have been promised lavish rewards by the Nazis. But ultimately this is still a story of survival that runs from the beginning of the film to the end. It is also an English-language film, a Canadian/Polish coproduction in origin, despite taking place in occupied Poland, which should make it more accessible to a wider audience.

The motion picture was well directed by Louise Archambault. It will be released in April 2024 and it premiered at TIFF and won an Audience Award at VIFF and WIFF. In 2019, Louise released the feature films, Il pleuvait des oiseaux (And the Birds Rained Down), which won awards such as Best Feature at the Göteborg Film Festival and the comedy Merci pour tout (Thanks for everything). These films ranked 2nd and 3rd position in Canada's box office. Her recent feature Le temps d'un été (One Summer) was released in July 2023 and ranked top 1 Canadian film at the box office, the best Canadian BO since 2019. Rating: 6.5/10.

I fully confess to doing a poor job of keeping up with current film releases over the past several years, as my knowledge has mostly been ad hoc, based on what's showing up on my streaming services. I'd heard nothing of this film until seeing it on the carte on Showtime a couple of nights ago, knew almost the same about any of the parties involved. I also rarely write notes on IMDB but am drawn in this instance in light of the undeservedly mediocre overall score, skewed by one review which seems ridiculous in all regards to me. So, onto the film itself. As others have noted, the acting and production values can be uneven, but what a story! There's more than a bit of Schindler's List here, but this is even more extraordinary, with the protagonist having anything but a privileged position. Other have recapped the plot well; I won't do that here, but as impressive this is as a yarn, what's more so is the moral complexity and humanity of almost all of the characters, even the Germans, and the gimlet eyed vision of the filmmaker that, although they're not the primary bad guys here, the Soviets have almost as much to answer for as the Nazis for their actions during this time, very much putting the lie to the "Good Fight" misnomer (as so many other things, entirely unrelated to this film, like Japanese-American internment, our bombing of civilian populations in Germany and Japan, indifference to the plight of European Jews, etc., etc, do too). I'm often moved by great cinema, but I must admit getting a bit more than teary watching the follow up stories of the real life characters which roll during the final credits (don't miss this!). This nets out for me somewhere between an 8 and a 9, but it gets the benefit of the doubt for the greatness of the story and the need to bump up the collective score here. I note that, while this movie isn't Polish, it's set there, making for a duo of two of the best films of the past years I've seen along with "Forgotten Love". Highly recommended.

I have always been a huge supporter and sympathizer of oppressed people all over the world. I will never understand any person's intense hatred and extreme obsession to hurt another based solely on one's race. Thankfully, on the flip side of this evil, we are also inspired by decent people who have displayed heroic acts of courage, morals and good conscience to protect victims in these horrific circumstances. I was immediately drawn into this movie and captivated until the credits rolled by. Sophie Nelisse and the entire cast deliver phenomenal performances. This movie is fraught with drama and suspense and I can't recommend it highly enough!

The street scenes for this were filmed in Lublin old town 4 kilometres from Majdanek concentration camp where my wife's grandmother (Adela) was held as a prisoner for 18 months.

Adela was a nurse in the Polish secret army and was caring for a Polish soldier who was injured when the Gestapo arrived one day in her hometown of Kurów and went to her house and shot the soldier and arrested her.

She was taken to Lublin Gestapo headquarters and tortured for two weeks including being raped multiple times and they broke all of her fingers and her jaw and many of her ribs and was then sent to Majdanek concentration camp.

She died three years ago and after the church service we saw a strange man talking to my father-in-law and after a few mins, we saw that they were both crying and hugging each other.

It turns out that he came from the same town of Kurów and in the war he was very sick and the only available medicine was from the Germans and his mother made the desperate decision to trade the information on Adela for medicine for her son.

Grandmother Adela never spoke about how she was deceived until her death as she knew that the son, his mother and all of her family would be called traitors and could face massive problems in their lives.

She only mentioned the camp a few times in her life as it was too traumatic to speak about, but the times she did speak about it was about the disgusting things the Germans did to the Jews rather reminiscent of the street scene in this film where one German woman guard smashed a baby's head on the floor because it was crying too loud.

I try to understand the hatred between nations of modern times but Grandmother Adela taught us that the hatred should be directed towards the leaders of such terrible conflicts, not the people.

I was proud to name my daughter after her.