One Life

James Hawes: One Life (GB 2023) with Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton.

Une vie / One Life (Finnish title) / One Life (Swedish title).

    GB © 2023 Willow Road Films / BBC Film. PC: See-Saw Films / BBC Film / MBK Productions / Cross City Films / FilmNation Entertainment / LipSync. P: Joanna Laurie, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Guy Heeley.

    D: James Hawes. SC: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake - based on the book If It's Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton (2014) by Barbara Winton [his daughter]. Cin: Zac Nicholson. PD: Christina Moore. AD: Aline Leonello. Set Dec: Philippa Hart, Petra Vendelidesova, Klara Zimova. Cost: Joanna Eatwell. SFX: Chris Reynolds. M: Volker Bertelmann. S: Stephen Griffiths. ED: Lucia Zucchetti.

    Cast:

Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton [Sir]

Johnny Flynn as young Nicholas Winton

Helena Bonham Carter as Babi Winton

Lena Olin as Grete Winton

Jonathan Pryce as Martin Blake

Ziggy Heath as young Martin Blake

Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner

Alex Sharp as Trevor Chadwick

Samantha Spiro as Esther Rantzen

    Soundtrack: W. A. Mozart: "Donne mie, la fate a tanti" from Così fan tutte (1790), K. 588, act II.

    In English, also German, Czech, French.

    Loc: Prague, London, Aug-Oct 2022.

    In memory of Barbara Winton (1953-2022).

    109 min, [Finnish duration announced 102 min]

    Festival premiere: 9 Sep 2023 Toronto

    UK premiere: 1 Jan 2024.

    Sortie en France: 21 février 2024, released by SND Films, sous-titres francais Maï Boiron.
    Finnish premiere: 22 March 2024, released by Nordisk Film.

    Viewed at UGC Danton, Salle 1, 99 bd Saint-Germain, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Métro Odéon, 75006 Paris, 24 Feb 2024

UGC synopsis: " Prague, 1938. Alors que la ville est sur le point de tomber aux mains des nazis, Nicholas Winton organise des convois vers l’Angleterre, où 669 enfants juifs trouveront refuge. Cette histoire vraie, restée méconnue pendant des décennies, est dévoilée au monde entier en 1988. "

Wikipedia synopsis: " When 29-year-old London stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in 1938, just weeks after the Munich Agreement was signed, he encounters families in Prague who had fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany and Austria. They are living in poor conditions, with little or no shelter or food and in fear of the invasion of the Nazis. Winton is introduced to Doreen Warriner, head of the Prague office of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC). Horrified by the conditions in the refugee camps, Winton decides to save Jewish children himself. Actively supported by his mother Babette, herself a German-Jewish migrant who has since converted to the Church of England, he overcomes bureaucratic hurdles, collects donations and looks for foster families for the children brought to England. Many of them are Jews who are at imminent risk of deportation. A race against time begins as it is unclear how long the borders will remain open before the inevitable Nazi invasion. "

" Fifty years later, in 1988, Winton, now in his 70s, cleans up some of the clutter in his office, which his wife Grete asked him to do. He finds his old documents in which he recorded his work for the BCRC, with photos and lists of the children they wanted to bring to safety. Winton still blames himself for not being able to save more. At lunch with his old friend Martin, Winton thinks about what he should do with all the documents. He is considering donating them to a Holocaust museum, but at the same time he wants to draw some attention to the current plight of refugees, so he does not do it. "

" The documents end up in the hands of the That's Life! production team, a TV show produced by the BBC with presenter Esther Rantzen. Winton is invited onto the show and asked to sit in the audience. That's Life surprises Winton by inviting some of the children he helped save onto the show to meet him. "

"Save one life, save the world" (motto).

AA: The story of Kindertransport, a historical drama, a period play, a true story, more than a thriller, another great performance by Anthony Hopkins.

Nicholas Winton (1909-2015 - he died at age 106) does not want to be celebrated as a hero because in his own eyes he is not one and because everything is teamwork. He did save lives, but more should have been done. In the world he sees around him 50 years later, even more should be saved, and he devotes his life to humanitarian aid. His disappointment is profound.

A sense of understated but overwhelming regret lifts One Life above the regular trend of "Shoah business".

The fabula starts in the year 1938, the year of the Munich Agreement. I saw recently the brilliant American documentary film Crisis, released in March 1939, about this. Western powers wash their hands and let Hitler have his way with Czechoslovakia and later Poland. 

I am also thinking about two of the greatest films I have seen in recent years: The U.S. and the Holocaust (by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein), and its "sequel", The Corridors of Power (by Dror Moreh). Today I am thinking about the terrorized children of Gaza in a cruel and disgraceful twist of history.

James Hawes is not a master of suspense. One Life is laid back, conventional, powerfully emotional in its restraint, despite a syrupy score, I cried through the later part of the picture, together with Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton.

...

PS 27 Feb 2024. Lingering image: the photo of the little girl Lenka Weiss with eyes that have seen too much, holding an orphan baby with no name. Both lost forever in the Prague turmoil.

Another lingering image: the "Ein Volk - ein Reich - ein Führer" travel plan for 1938-1948 - the whole Europe in Nazi domination.