Everything Is Illuminated

In America, the Jewish Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) collects personal belongings of his family for recollection. A few moments before dying, his grandmother gives an old photograph of his grandfather with a woman called Augustine in Ukraine. Jonathan contacts the Odessa Heritage Tours, a family agency in Ukraine, to guide him to the location where the picture had been taken to find Augustine, and together with the interpreter Alex (Eugene Hutz), his grandfather and a weird dog, they travel in an old car searching the missing past of Jonathan's family.

"Everything Is Illuminated" is a strange movie about a weird young man with the compulsive behavior of collecting souvenirs from his family to not forget them that seeks the past of his grandfather to understand how could be his life if his grandfather had not moved to USA. This bizarre vegetarian character meets a dysfunctional Ukrainian family that owns an amateurish travel agency specialized in helping Jews to find missing relatives, and together they have an almost surrealistic road-trip through the country of Ukraine. The movie begins like a comedy, with a sarcastic black humor, and ends in a touching and tragic drama recommended for specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Vida Iluminada" ("An Illuminated Life")

This is precious. Everything Is Illuminated is sweetly and sublimely funny from the first delicious line of dialogue. Oh, how I've been waiting for this to arrive in Austin. While Elijah Wood is charming as ever as Jonathan Safran Foer (the real-life author of the novel Everything Is Illuminated), it's Eugene Hutz (playing Jonathan's Ukrainian tour-guide and translator, Alex) who truly steals this film. Alex is a hip-hop-lovin' Ukrainian break-dancer who, along with his grandfather, helps Jonathan find the woman who saved Jonathan's grandfather's life during World War II. The Ukrainian countryside has never looked so breath taking. I'm thinking of packing it all up and moving to the former Soviet state.

The tone of the film, however, shifts when Jonathan and Alex do finally meet the woman they're looking for, and suddenly, this adorable comedy turns into a heart-breaking historical drama about a Jewish village that was annihilated during the Nazi occupation. Everything Is Illuminated is about history, heritage, and the wisdom that can be gained from uncovering the past. It's perfect.

Everything is Illuminated is by far one of the best movies that I've seen recently. It has a very good mix of sad and hilarious, and it comes in phases. The beginning is funny, the ending is sad. In that, I think the movie does well, as its goal is to illustrate a serious topic.

I would have given the movie a higher rank, but I feel that the translation from Russian/Ukrainian into English is not done too well. At times, that is clearly deliberate. At times, I could not find a better way to re-tell the situation as it has a slight Lost in Translation effect. At times, it was just poorly done. Thankfully, there are very few poorly done moments. At one point, the English translation is a direct opposite of what the actors actually said.

However, I feel that a significant amount of the humor comes from a deliberate mis-translation from Russian to English. While some viewers may feel that they are left out, there are situations which are difficult to convey in a few phrases that have yeas of history and culture behind them. You definitely get the most out of this movie if you understand Russian. You get even more if you understand the cultural differences between primarily Russian-speaking Odessa and primarily Ukrainian-speaking L'viv. Some anecdotes are simply incorrect, albeit funny.

Regardless of the 8, I still add this movie to my favorites. I feel that much of what is incorrect is left as-is for a reason, and overall, the movie does very well to convey life in Ukraine (the old and the new), the friendliness, though maybe rough up-front, of the people and the story itself. Well done.

Everything Is Illuminated A young Jewish American searches for the woman that helped his grandfather escape Nazi persecution while embarking on a cross-European tour with some unlikely associates.

Liev Schreiber makes his directorial debut with a playful angst usually associated with his acting ethos. When successful actors decide to sit in the director's chair, we usually get a biographical glimpse at the souls beneath the acting mask- Check. We usually get a mishmash of genres- Check. But what we normally do not get is an insightful original film which is credible, intelligent and moving.

Elijah Wood plays Jonathan, an inquisitive young boy who collects pieces of life as he goes. He is on a mission to find a woman in a photograph. The sepia picture bears his grandfather (an uncanny resemblance to him) and the woman. To aid his journey he enlists the help of travel guides that comprise of a Hip-Hop loving break-dancer, Alex (Eugene Hutz), his apathetic and perma-vexed grandfather (Boris Leskin) and his dog- Sammy Davis Junior Jr! What ensues is essentially a comedy. There is an un-patronisingly simple introduction with voice-overs. Alex's is especially funny as he educates his younger brother on the year 1969, proving how popular he is with the chicks and break-dancing thus setting him up as Jonathan's antithesis.

Schreiber begins to break down the characters as they progress and the comedy acts as an intentional veil to what is a story about three people linked to the holocaust who do not really know themselves. All three hold the film with tenderness and authenticity something Schreiber was unlikely to get wrong and as enchanting and fantastical as the film is, the horrors that are allowed to crack through, i.e. the past are presented in an almost palatable tone (incidental music, cinematography) which make them all the more unsettling.

As the unlikely group finally find the town they seek they learn of the true atrocities that occurred and find out a lot about who they really are.

Elijah wood is as authentic as usual, bringing his usual innocence and strength to the screen. Formally a resident good in Lord of the Rings and a resident evil in Sin City he plays Jonathan with aplomb as he is bombarded with culture shocks and a quest for truth. Boris Leskin as the grandfather also delivers his angst and frustration at the youths with great humour and conviction as his own past is unravelled. However, it is Eugene Hutz as Alex that makes the show. The director using that old trade of translation misunderstandings to create and maintain a humour that is actually funny and not gimmicky.

Schreiber has delivered an enchanting debut that has both heart and soul. The continuous score and beautiful photography creates a fairy tale haze around a story about identity, truth and family. If there was a complaint, it would be the speed at which the film changes direction; though this could have been intentional it may not sit well with all. Nevertheless this is a sterling effort that delivers great comedy and bonding between an unlikely group while dissecting another aspect of the horrors of World War 2 in a completely fresh fashion.

-Chi&Ojo

"Everything is Illuminated" is a simplified interpretation of something more than half of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. This version is more about changes in Eastern Europe from World War II through post-Cold War and how the younger generation relates to that history as a family memory.

Debut director/adapter Liev Schreiber retains some of the humor and language clashes of the novel, mostly through the marvelous Eugene Hutz as the U.S.-beguiled Ukrainian tour guide. He is so eye-catching that the film becomes more his odyssey into his country and his family as he goes from his comfortable milieu in sophisticated Odessa to the heart of a cynical, isolated land that has been ravaged by conquerors through the Communists and now capitalists, with both Jews and non-Jews as detritus. As funny as his opening scenes are when he establishes his cheeky bravura, we later feel his fish-out-of-waterness in his own country when he tries to ask directions of local yokels.

Shreiber uses Elijah Wood, as the American tourist, as an up tight cog in a visual panoply, as his character is less verbal than as one of the narrators in the book. He and Hutz play off each other well until the conclusion that becomes more sentimental in this streamlined plot. Once the grandfather's story takes over in the last quarter of the film, marvelously and unpredictably enacted by Boris Leskin, the younger generation does not seem to undergo any catharsis, as they just tidy up the closure.

Schreiber does a wonderful job visualizing the human urge to document history. One of his consultants in the credits is Professor Yaffa Eliach and her style of remembering pre-Holocaust shtetl life through artifacts clearly inspired the look and it is very powerful and effective.

The Czech Republic stands in for the Ukraine and the production design staff were able to find memorable symbols of change in the cities, towns and countryside, as this is now primarily a road movie, and the long driving scenes do drag a bit. Schreiber retains some of the symbolism from the book, particularly of the moon and river, but having cut out the portions of the book that explain those, they just look pretty or ominous for atmosphere and no longer represent time and fate.

As W.C. Fields would have predicted, the dog steals most of his scenes for easy laughs. In general, Schreiber does go for more poignancy than the book. It is irresistibly touching, especially for those who haven't read the book, but less morally and emotionally messy.

The film is enormously uplifted by its marvelous soundtrack, which ranges from songs and instrumentals from Hutz's gypsy band to traditional tunes to contemporary tracks to Paul Cantelon's klezmer fusion score.

This is not a Holocaust film per se, being a kind of mirror image of "The Train of Life (Train de vie)" as about memory of a time that is freighted with meaning now, but will resonate more with those who have an emotional connection to that history.