The Long Way Home

Starring: Morgan Freeman (narrator), Ruth Gruber, Clark Clifford, Edward Asner (voice), Sean Astin (voice), Martin Landau (voice), David Paymer (voice), Helen Slater (voice), Michael York (voice)
Directed by: Mark Jonathan Harris
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Documentary
1997

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Follows the efforts after World War II to establish a Jewish state, especially so refugees from the Holocaust have a homeland for themselves.

Review:

Tim: I thought The Long Way Home told an important story and everyone should see this film. That being said, the manner in which it was told could have been more effective. This is a good movie, but I'm a little surprised it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. It felt like that was more a testament to the importance of its subject than the actual movie itself.

The film is most visceral and memorable when it examines the human toll of the Holocaust. The film starts off with shocking, disturbing images of survivors of the concentrate camps. These images are nearly beyond belief and representative of some of the worst evil ever enacted against humanity. The story at the beginning is riveting- the survivors are shocked to see American troops, but the troops are even more stunned to see the state of the survivors. These is compelling, unforgettable film making. I was thoroughly engaged. The movie becomes less effective as it goes on, however. It spends most of its time not focusing on individuals, but on the broader events surrounding the creation of Israel as an independent state. This is one of the great success stories in world history and an even that everyone should know. I truly appreciated seeing this play out over the course of the rest of the movie.

The problem is that the movie too often plays like a visual history lesson. This is coming from someone who loved history in school (I minored in History in undergrad). History can be dreadfully boring, though, if you can't personalize it. The movie tries to do this and on occasion succeeds- some of the scenes of the ships illegally transporting Jewish refugees to Palestine are incredible. However, far too much of the film is disconnected from individuals and it feels like facts that you have to memorize. The deeper context is critical- that's where a love of history comes. We learn the facts, like about refugees on Cyprus and their high birth rate. We learn about the overly harsh actions of the British and the Jewish resistance bombings in retaliation. We learn about the UN debate over the creation of the Jewish state and we see how it comes about. It's interesting, but it's too often dates and names and facts. The movie needed to dig deeper, to tell a compelling story that helped you better understand the human element in these events. As mentioned, it sometimes gets there, but it often doesn't. That makes a two hour movie feel too long.

My complaints about this movie mostly center around the presentation of the material. It's never a bad movie (it's truly quite good), but it could have been better. Documentaries' first objectives may not be to entertain (I think it's first to inform), but the entertainment piece is critical. Using the visual medium of the movies, history needs to come to life. I never quite loved this film's approach of having famous actors reading firsthand accounts. It's fine, but it feels too removed. There's interview scenes throughout the movie and it's always more compelling to hear it from the people themselves. Again, this is presentation, not subject matter.

One major positive here is that this movie shined a light on the plight of the Jewish people between World War II and the creation of Israel. I knew about both those events as a student of history, but I never paused to consider the journey over those three or four years. What Jewish refugees suffered AFTER being "saved" from the Nazis is a disturbing and surprising tale. I really appreciated this film telling their story.

The Long Way Home (which is too generic of a title) is a good movie, no doubt about it. It informs you about an important human struggle that is too often overlooked. However, the movie could have been better made, it's story more skillfully told. I liked this movie, but it wouldn't be in the upper echelon of documentaries I've seen.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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