THE MAN WHO LOVED HAUGESUND
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
THE MAN WHO LOVED HAUGESUND, by directors Jon Haukeland and Tore Vollan, is a fascinating film documentary about Moritz Rabinowitz, who was the highest profile Jew in Norway when the Nazis invaded the country in 1940. A Polish Jew, he moved to the small Norwegian fishing village of Haugesund in 1911. With hard work and exemplary relations with his employees, he built the largest clothing store and factory in the country.
The only Jewish family in town, the Rabinowitzes weren't invited to socialize with the rest of the community. Nevertheless Mr. Rabinowitz was an active voice in his town, writing long articles for the newspaper, proposing everything from a European trade union to exporting Norwegian electricity. These far-sighted ideas, as well as his prescient diatribes against the building menace of Hitler and his Nazi party, were uniformly ignored.
As a business owner, however, Rabinowitz was widely respected. Working for him was fun and people took pride in producing the best quality clothing goods in the country.
The movie, scored perfectly, reaches its zenith when Rabinowitz has to flee when the Nazis land in Norway. Dozens of non-Jewish Norwegians risk their lives to hide him. In the end, his downfall was that he wouldn't stop trying to help out with his business. A call back to review how things were going accidentally revealed his current hiding place. He and all of his family died in various Nazi concentration camps in Germany. Today his stores are derelicts. He was almost forgotten until this film was made. The directors, who were at our screening, said that the movie was warmly received all over Norway, especially in Haugesund.
THE MAN WHO LOVED HAUGESUND runs 1:20. The film is in Norwegian with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be PG for mature themes and would be acceptable for kids around 8 and up.
The film was shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival (www.Cinequest.org), which ran March 3-14, 2004.
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