I've seen many Holocaust and WWII films, and for me Spring 1941 is up there among the best of them. It shows how people would tolerate just about anything to save their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. In this case, a Jewish couple left their home in order to avoid Nazi capture. Along the way one of their young daughters is killed. The remaining child and the parents stay at the home of a local farmer who also happens to be in love with the husband in the couple, as he was her doctor. They enter into a relationship and the scorned wife wants out. Ultimately the husband chooses his family over the farmer, and they take their chances by leaving the farmer's home and joining the Jews being marched to god knows where.
The story of the past is interspersed with the story of the wife thirty years later when she has become a famous cellist and returns to Poland to receive an award. I believe the alternating between 1941 and 1971 was done effectively. By the film's end it has evolved into a real tear jerker, presenting the overwhelming sadness that the characters have had to bear, from 1941 to the present. That's what came across most intensely for me: that no matter what the details were of any individual's or family's story, every one of them was tragic with an ensuing lifetime of sad memories. No matter how extensive the accomplishments of Holocaust survivors, and no matter how much time passes, the images of their perished loved ones and the heinous sadistic abuse they endured, never go away.
For such an intense, emotional story, I think the acting was excellent and did it justice. I never felt, as at least one reviewer did, that the film descended into melodrama.
The story of the past is interspersed with the story of the wife thirty years later when she has become a famous cellist and returns to Poland to receive an award. I believe the alternating between 1941 and 1971 was done effectively. By the film's end it has evolved into a real tear jerker, presenting the overwhelming sadness that the characters have had to bear, from 1941 to the present. That's what came across most intensely for me: that no matter what the details were of any individual's or family's story, every one of them was tragic with an ensuing lifetime of sad memories. No matter how extensive the accomplishments of Holocaust survivors, and no matter how much time passes, the images of their perished loved ones and the heinous sadistic abuse they endured, never go away.
For such an intense, emotional story, I think the acting was excellent and did it justice. I never felt, as at least one reviewer did, that the film descended into melodrama.