Selected cinemas; Cert 12A
The Most Precious of Cargoes
Europe is at war and winter has blanketed the forests of Poland in snow. When a woodcutter’s wife finds a baby near the railway tracks, it seems like a gift from the gods after the couple were left childless by tragedy.
Initially resentful of the infant because it belongs to “the Heartless”, her husband slowly comes to see the prejudice towards the little girl’s kind is grounded in toxic lies.
What the couple don’t know is the girl’s parents were en route to Auschwitz when her father flung her from the carriage in a moment of desperation (shown to us in absolutely harrowing flashbacks). The child’s origin has not gone unnoticed in the small forest community, however.
Michel Hazanavicius took Oscar glory in 2011 with silent-era pastiche The Artist, but channels more sombre energies in this animated Holocaust fable based on the Jean-Claude Grumberg book.
In an animation style that nods heavily to Kawase Hasui’s woodblock prints, the saga is as full of beauty and humanity as it is unflinching of the horrifying context. Some ground is lost in the finale’s over-cooked narrative voiceover (by late Gallic screen icon Jean-Louis Trintignant).
Four stars
