Title: Run, Boy, Run
Director: Pepe Danquart
Starring: Andrzej and Kamil Tkacz, Jeanette Hain, Rainer Bock, Itay Tiran, Katarzyna Bargielowska.
‘Run, Boy, Run’ (German: ‘Lauf, Junge, lauf,’ Polish: ‘Biegnij, ch?opcze, biegnij,’ French: ‘Cours sans te retourner’) is a 2013 German-Polish-Frenchco-production of the film director and producer Pepe Danquart.
The film is an adaptation of the 2000 novel ‘Run, Boy, Run’ by Uri Orlev, based on true events from the life of Yoram Fridman. It’s the Shoah seen from the eyes of a nine year old: Skrulik is the youngest of five Jewish siblings living in a village near Warsaw. His father will sacrifice himself to spare the young boy from the Gestapo and tells him to run, to change his name, to survive and deny he is Jewish, but never to forget his faith and heritage. Thus begins the boy’s odyssey, as Jurek, living in the forest, working on farms, pretending he is Christian, through the help of a woman who will teach him the prayers and predicaments of a religion that is unknown to him. Besides persecution he will be inflicted a very serious injury to his arm, which will confront the young soul with a great loss during the age of innocence. Nonetheless hope and courage will sustain him through hardships.
Today he is 82, living in Israel with the love of his life, Sonia, whom he met after the war, who bore him two children. As a grandfather of six children, today Yoram Fridman retired from his position as a maths teacher 11 years ago and now enjoys life as family patriarch and an ardent basketball fan.
Danquart, who won an Oscar in 1993 for his short film ‘Black Rider,’ interviewed 700 youngsters before finding twins Andrzej & Kamil Tkaczz for the central role of Srulik/Jurek. The young fellows’ tandem-performance brings justice to Fridman, as a representative of the Holocaust survivors. Furthermore, the director’s depiction of the desolated vast spaces, traversed by the lone boy, amplifies his dejected path, as he succeeds on the long run in his race for life.
Technical: A-
Acting: A
Story: A+
Overall: A
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
