"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Yes, these are idealistic mantras, of a sort. But the history the film is depicting is real history in which the ideas captured in these mantras were matters of life or death to those being hunted by Nazi murderers and those risking their lives to shelter the hunted.
Vive l'humanité.
I read one review and wonder if the man writing it saw the same film I did. He takes the movie to task for repeating mantras he regards as simplistic and idealistic. They include the statement,
“When kindness can cost you your life, it becomes a miracle.”
And:
“The world of reality has its limits. The world of imagination is boundless.”
The film also has the Holocaust survivor as an aged, world-renowned artist, quoting Dr. King:
The film tells the story of a young Jewish Holocaust survivor and the brutalization of her French town by the Nazis with the active complicity of many of its own citizens and the courageous resistance that led some citizens to push back and even lose their lives in doing so, and in protecting people sought by the Nazis including the young Jewish survivor.
Friends invited us this weekend to see the new film "White Bird." Another friend whose theater acumen vastly surpasses ours saw it recently and highly recommended it to us. I'm glad we accepted the invitation and listened to the recommendation, since the movie tells a painful, transformative story about hope in the darkest of times, and about the fragile threads that bind us and enable us to rise above brutal oppression.
