Photo courtesy of VVS Films
BY Rachel HoPosted on March 13, 2024
The story of Sir Nicholas Winton and the Kindertransport, as it is now known, has been transferred to celluloid several times, adding the Oscar-winning documentary Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport via Mark Jonathan Harris. In his directorial debut, filmmaker James Hawes dramatizes Operation Kindertransport in One Life, a story that skips the surface.
For all the cinematic treatment of the story, of course, Winton never sought to acknowledge his work leading up to World War II. It wasn’t until the late 1980s, when Winton gave a Holocaust researcher a scrapbook he had compiled documenting his efforts. and those of his colleagues, that Winton’s usual expression of compassion was revealed.
Working in London and at just 30 years old, Winton organized the evacuation of young Czechoslovaks to Britain as refugees between 1938 and 1939, amid Hitler’s growing control over Eastern Europe. The last organization of young people to leave Prague on September 1, 1939 unfortunately never left the station, even when the Nazis invaded Poland and World War II officially began. In total, thanks to Winton’s perseverance and determination, approximately 700 young people were saved.
Winton has twice appeared on a BBC show called That’s Life!In 1988, thanks to the program, he was reunited with these children (as well as their children and grandchildren). For his humanitarian efforts, Winton knighted Queen Elizabeth II. in 2003 and received the Order of the White Lion (First Class) in 2014, the highest honour bestowed in the Czech Republic. Winton died in 2015 at the age of 106, but his story lives on thanks in large part to a snippet of That’s Life!showing Winton knowing that the audience around him is made up of those kids, who continue to circulate on social media.
Inherently, Winton’s story – especially in the film’s final moments, when That’s Life!The segments are recreated – it adds an emotional weight. Nearly a hundred years after the war, the public still inherently understands the strength of Kindertransport, especially considering the current state of global affairs.
Unfortunately, One Life turns out to rely on this assumption to make the film, to delve into the operation or the effect it had on young people to move the film forward.
Hawes’ film, with a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, is set between 1988, when an elderly Winton (played by Anthony Hopkins) cleans up his space at the request of his wife (Lena Olin), and 1938-1939, when the real evacuations take place. take a stand (with Johnny Flynn betting on young Winton).
In the past, a quick glance shows how the evacuation unfolded, from Winton dodging the administrative whims of British bureaucracy to obtaining visas, to the departure and arrival of children in Prague and London. Over the course of the film, we see Winton busy around his house, living a secluded and unpretentious life, shedding the clutter of the years. We are transported from moment to moment without much rhythm or poetry, resulting in a poignantly unsettling lack of weight that overwhelms us, knowing that what happens on screen is emotional.
But it’s vital to note that the significant contribution of Winton’s mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and her co-stars, Doreen (Romola Garai) and Trevor (Alex Sharp), also stands out in the film: a welcome inclusion in a story that tends to concentrate only on Winton. Doreen and Trevor are the two who were in Prague and accompanied the young people on those exercise trips, making their appearance here a revelation.
Without a doubt, One Life will leave audiences in tears. The effect Winton has had on 669 children, and subsequently on the families they have created and the communities they have contributed to, is unfathomable. Winton’s altruism is the most productive example of what must be done in the face of immense stress. Look away. It’s a story that deserves to be told and told, and it also deserves a more comprehensive remedy than One Life.