“White Bird” directed by Marc Forster, deals with the Holocaust and comes out as a thoughtful but more or less didactic movie which tries to depict so much tragedy mostly as a classroom interaction for today’s children. It is an extended digression of a French granny narrating to the grandson about tolerance and its meant for the teenage readers of the source comic whose writer is R.J. Palacio.
Under the direction of the deep-eyed Mark Forster (“Finding Neverland”), the picture is also a sequel of a sort of 2017 “Wonder,” perhaps it is more precise to regard it as a “universe expander” than the film of “Wonder” which I have just described about a boy named August ‘Auggie’ Pullman who was born with facial abnormalities (a condition known as mandibulofacial dysostosis) and trying to blend in with other students. While White Bird is a self-contained film, it shares a film universe with Wonder: the pupil for this particular lesson is Julian Albans (Bryce Gheisar, the only surviving member of the original film’s cast), one of the lads who tormented Auggie, apologized to him only after acquiring a new diploma and a lot of mess from students and teachers.
White Bird opens in 1990 with Julian still at a fancied prep school located in Manhattan, being served some humble pie and being bullied in 1990, long before he joins a group of students who are told he is sitting at the centrally arranged ‘losers’ table’ in the lunch room. He bears the feeling of being out of place even when he is not, whooshing to the idea of ‘fitting in’ and being ‘normal’, the ‘mean’ or ‘nice’ type of normal. His Grandmère Sara (Helen Mirren), in the United States for her art’s exhibition, recounts to him the most of what happened in the rest of the movie, which is focused on an event from 1942. This event takes place in Alsace, a region situated outside the administered region of France that was under Nazi rule, long instead up was encroaching. The plot focuses on 15 year old Sara (Ariella Glaser) also a Jew, whose parents (Olivia Ross and Ishai Golan) are quite a thinking they would be able to run away from the Nazi threats, which cannot and did not happen.
Very soon, the film degenerates into a reimagined depiction of ‘the diary of Anne Frank’ where Sara is being sheltered in the barn by a classmate, Julien Beaumier’s (Orlando Schwarzt) family. A polio survivor, Julien wears a brace on his leg and some boys in his class called him The Crab because of his gait which is sideways due to the use of a crutch and they make fun of him. And gradually, their relationships become more tender. Sara was looked after by Julien’s parents (Gillian Anderson and Jo-Stone Fewings) and she almost felt she had a new family or at best a very good surrogate one – though more likely temporary. It is already suggested in the framing device that the worst is yet to come and so it happens.
The film “White Bird” directed by Matthias Koenigswieser and shot in epic proportions has lovely moments complete but inphotogenic space. The cinematography closely resembles to that of historical dramas which Academy voters seem to have developed unusual attachment to. While they perform the tasks that allow the story to unfold, images of places, structures and peoples do not away from it succumb to very rarely if ever venturing out from their plot function. Furthermore the story appears to be too harsh and real it must have been touched by poster designer hands too hard lipstick on girls where the makeup looks fresh out from the salon the very same day as they were shot, the costumes are new overly saturated with expected expectations even more so dirt-caked knees or snagged sweaters on nails I mean no one in this town. All in all, it’s way too much content and bureaucratic structure and cleanliness, both depicting and narrative, to really shake and quite annoy a 14 year old audience who has seen or read a film or book on the Holocaust made for adults, knowing the basic history of Europe during that time actually sitting in a class.
And frankly, there’s something squicky about the way the film denominates what is, in the broader aspect, a horror story concerned with the genocide, its immediate repercussions over the lives of a few, and spins it out as a cheesy love story with the tagline: as Grandmère Sara puts it, “There are things you will forget in life and there are things that you will never forget, like being kind.” There’s a secondary message towards the end that nice people get all the dates and the dates make you want to be nice. A lot of real-world counter-evidence could be brought to the support of that statement, but this is not the place to fan those flames.
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