- “Irena's Vow” is the life story of Irena Gut-Opdyke, who saved Polish Jews during World War II. The title role was played by Canadian actress Sophie Nelisse. Her partners are Dougray Scott and Polish actors: Andrzej Seweryn, Eliza Rycembel, Tomasz Tyndyk and Aleksandar Milićević.
- The film will be shown in Polish cinemas from April 19. Watch the trailer!
Polish nurse Irena Gut-Opdyke not only saved Jews during World War II. She saved them brazenly and daringly… in the house of a German officer. Irena worked as a nurse in a hospital in Radom. After the Soviet Army entered, she was arrested and raped. She was transferred to Tarnopol, where she was sent to German hell. As a blonde-haired, blue-eyed and German-speaking girl, she quickly fell into the favor of prominent local Germans. In 1942, Wehrmacht Major Edward Rügemer spotted her in the hotel where he was temporarily staying and took her to a sumptuous villa where he was accommodated. Irena discovers basements where she could have hidden Jews she had previously helped. Everything worked for half a year until Rügemer discovered her with three Jewish women in the kitchen. One of them was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Irena was forced to become his lover in order to continue helping her persecuted friends. “I knew I had to bear this burden alone. I would never be able to tell my friends what the price for their safety was. They would never let me pay it,” she wrote in her memoirs.
She didn't talk about her heroism for a long time, until in the 1970s, deniers of what the Germans did during the war began to appear in the public space. In 1982, she was honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. A purely Hollywood story, but Canadian director Louise Archambault decided to tell it more intimately and without unnecessary pathos.
The screenplay of “Irene's Vow” was written by Dan Gordon, known for his excellent text for “The Hurricane” by Norman Jewison, but also for such classics as “Wyatt Earp” by Lawrence Kasdan or “Passenger 57”. Gordon is a specialist in thorough, though devoid of fireworks, texts with appropriate character development and narrative structure. The Canadian-Polish co-production is a solidly told story that focuses on an interesting personal story, but also takes care of the historical context. Objectively showing Polish heroism during the Holocaust, but also blackmail.
Irena is played by young Canadian actress Sophie Nelisse, which credibly reflects the delicacy and at the same time the fortitude of a young nurse. Her Irena transforms from a frightened young girl full of ideals into a cynically manipulative torturer (very good Dougray Scott as Rügemer) a strong woman. Irena is not a bronze figure, but an ordinary girl, hesitant, terrified and struggling to achieve everyday heroism, thrown into the middle of hell. A girl who just “behaves”.
Gordon's great idea was to confront Irena's transformation with Schultz (Andrzej Seweryn), the owner of the hotel restaurant where the girl worked before moving to the major's house. The older man not only teaches her a profession, but also gives her tips on how to survive the war. “Sometimes it's enough to just give them dessert,” he tells Irena, who is unable to serve the sadistic officer Rokita (a demonic Maciej Nawrocki). Schultz is also an interesting character who helps Jews in his own way. Subtly and without risking your own life. Moreover, Major Rügemer at some point becomes an “accomplice in helping”. It's all because of Irena's bold game. You can help in many different ways, the filmmakers tell us. It is important to do anything for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
The scene in which the Jews whom Irena later saved introduce themselves to her, telling her who they were before the war, is very telling. Someone was a chemist, someone else was a lawyer, and yet another person says he worked in a hospital. We see people who until recently lived like Aryans, and today they are reduced to the role of basement rats. There is also room for a bit of dark humor. When Rügemer demands to bring a German butler home for a party he is throwing for the Nazi elite, Irena, fearing that her secret will be discovered, convinces her that she will be able to serve everyone herself. She manages to please the hungry and thirsty “master race” because she is helped by the Jews who prepare more plates of exquisite appetizers in the basement. Naive? Maybe so, but there are bits of Jewish sarcasm worthy of the Larry David/Jerry Seinfeld duo. There is even an opinion here that a robbed house, a house where a Nazi lives, must have a secret bunker. Why? Because it once belonged to the Jews.
It's a pity that such scenes can be counted on half the fingers of one hand. It is possible that if Gordon's script had been handed over to a more experienced director, we could have gotten a much more inventive film that would go against the grain of the narrative of Holocaust cinema. Louise Archambault, however, is conservative and plays safe cards. It is no secret that it is difficult to say anything new about the Holocaust in cinema today, without repeating copies from the past. Jonathan Glazer in his brilliant “Strefa Biznesu” proved that it is possible. But “Irena's Oath” is not about the camp. It's a film about an ordinary girl who decided not to turn her back and risked everything because that's what humanity demands. A valuable lesson in a country at war.
7/10
“Irena's Vow”