Into the Arms of Strangers

A Phoenix pick

No Life Is Beautiful, this Holocaust documentary chronicles the rescue of 10,000 Jewish children via the kindertransport, a pre-war (late 1930s) train-to-boat passage that took the refugees from Nazi Germany to England, where they were assigned foster parents. Director Mark Jonathan Harris (he directed the Oscar-winning documentary The Long Way Home) assembles archival footage to demonstrate the political-moral complacency of the times. The British government relaxed its immigration laws to admit children under the age of 17 but refused to let in adults, feeling that would be a threat to the country's economic balance. America's politicians, on the other hand, argued that "to take children without their parents would be contrary to God."

On camera, the kinder refugees recall the bittersweet trials of leaving their parents behind, the hard adjustments to a new life and family, the constant struggle to stay in contact with their parents (many of who were deported to Auschwitz, where they perished) and their reconciliations after the war. Produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, who does The Drew Carey Show, the film constitutes a fond remembrance of Oppenheimer's mother, who was saved by the kindertransport. It can be languorous in development at times, but Into the Arms of Strangers is an affecting triumph. Screens Thursday, September 14th at 11:30 a.m. and 2 and 4:30 p.m.

-- Tom Meek

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Film Festival Feature Films

| A Fight to the Finish: Stories of Polio | A Man is Mostly Water | A Trial in Prague | Blessed Art Thou | Charming Billy | Enemies of Laughter | Enlightenment Guaranteed | The Exorcist | Harry, He's Here to Help | Into the Arms of Strangers | Just Looking | Ratcatcher | Seven Girlfriends | Two Family House | The Yards | You Can Count On Me |

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