Cinema: Film “One Life”: Being human as a heroic act

The first feature film by director James Hawes (series “Black Mirror”, “Enid”, “Snowpiercer”) tells the story of the British Nicholas Winton, who from the end of 1938 until the outbreak of the Second World War brought a total of 669 mostly Jewish children from Prague, where they were who had fled from the advancing Wehrmacht and the murderous Germans, were brought to England and thus saved their lives. Winton was not deterred from his rescue mission by bureaucratic hurdles or reservations among the London population, nor by the fact that the children had to be transported across National Socialist Germany.

43 years after the end of the war, in 1988, Winton was brought together on the TV show “That’s Life” with some of the children and their descendants he had saved. This scene can also be admired in »One Life«; the extras are also made up of actual descendants of the rescued children.

Winton’s story is told in “One Life” in such a conventional and emphatically realistic manner that the film often seems like a docudrama that simply tries to recreate the actual events as faithfully as possible. However, such filmic retellings usually bring little that is new and at the same time harbor the danger that the event becomes an object of sentimentality due to the attachment to affect. The monstrosity of German crimes then disappears behind the shining hero and at least a small happy ending. Today, when you think of “Schindler’s List,” you first think of such a hero and the exciting rescue story, rather than the horror of the concentration camps.

“One Life” is definitely worth noting that its makers are aware of this danger and that they are therefore trying to take away the heroism of the Winton character. Anthony Hopkins plays the old Winton as modest and reserved as possible and the production is often also strikingly barren, but ultimately everything ends in a tearful, sentimental finale, namely in the scene in which Winton meets the descendants of the children he saved. The American film critic Deborah Ross advises in the “Spectator” with some justification: “Take a whole pack of tissues with you if you want to be on the safe side and don’t want to unpack your sleeve.”

Why is the film still worth seeing? First of all, the story of Winton and the rescued children is actually an instructive and heartwarming one. The crucial messages of “One Life,” according to which everyone can do something for people in need and that millions of people are still on the run today who need support instead of suspicion, do not contain any analytical insight, but that is not the point here. Courage, solidarity and empathy with the weak are not rational categories, nothing that follows a systematic logic and they are always confronted with skepticism, misanthropy and resentment. To do it anyway, to be humane, even against resistance and despite personal risk, we should understand that here, is a heroic act, even today.

In “One Life,” the already old Winton tries to make his story public after decades of keeping it to himself and is initially met with rejection. Just the word “refugees” means that the editor of the local newspaper has no interest in the story. The whole thing takes place in the 1980s, but the allusion to current conditions cannot be overlooked. Later, when Winton has become famous with his story and is now asked for an interview by the same editor, he is seen angry for the only time in the film; he slams the door in the man’s face.

In the key scene of the film, we watch young Winton (Johnny Flint) and his refugee helpers in Prague as they realize what a difficult and dangerous mission they have ahead of them, even though they are just ordinary people (OV: » “ordinary people”). He trusts exactly these “ordinary people” in England who urgently need them as foster parents and escape helpers, because, as the young Winton says in the film: “I’m an ordinary person.” And his colleague Trevor seconds: “That’s it what we need is an army of commoners.”

Producer Iain Canning explains the scene: “We were very lucky to meet him (Nicholas Winton) before he died. He was extremely humble and generous. In his opinion, the film should not glorify him, but rather celebrate how the most ordinary people can achieve great things. Yes, they can and that should be highlighted in film, just as a man like Nicholas Winton and his helpers are for theirs Actions can and definitely should be celebrated.

The problem with this simple and ultimately depoliticized calendar message is that on the other side of the front line there was also an army of ordinary people who were organizing industrial mass murder.

»One Life«: Great Britain 2023. Director: James Hawes. Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin. 110 minutes. Playing in the cinema.