Mirka Mora and her former husband Georges were Melbourne icons in the hospitality and modern visual arts fields. From their arrival in Melbourne in 1951, having left Paris in 1947 for New York, they became leading lights in local artistic and hospitality circles, championing Bohemian lifestyles and French cuisine.
This impressionistic documentary film was co-produced and written by Trevor Graham, but is dominated by their son Philippe, an established New York based graphic novelist, artist and maker of horror films. It reports Philippe's findings when he looked into his well known parents' past. He travels to many of the locations involved, sets up his easel and paints cartoons for the graphic novel; interviews as many of the people who were significant in his parents' lives and decisions as he could find (many had passed away) and intersperses the result with original film excerpts, photographs and his own impressions.
The tale is hauntingly sad, a personal insight into how one family and those surrounding them made the most of very little in the horrors of the second world war in France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Truth can be stranger than fiction, and the sheer lucky twists and turns, supported by their humanity and selflessness underpins the story.
All people appearing do so as themselves, and Phillippe's decisions on approach and selection is refreshing and quirky. I found it a highly impressionistic film, unpredictably jumping around, but told the story in a very relatable way. It provides shocking insights into the awfulness of world war two through specific people's eyes and experiences.
It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the film, and it seemed longer than it was, particularly the earlier sections. I think I may have been expecting more recent material and more about their time and lives in Australia, but it is mostly about their experiences before they arrived. I don't think it will matter if you know a lot or nothing about Georges and Mirka Mora - the film tells the story without assuming prior knowledge.
