The Wall (1982) (TV)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Robert Markowitz

Writers:

John Hersey (novel)
Millard Lampell (play)

Release Date:

16 February 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Action | War | Drama

Plot:

A dramatic re-enactment of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish uprising in April 1943 were 650 armed members of...

Plot Keywords:

Jewish | Nazi | Warsaw Ghetto | Uprising | Resistance

Cast

Tom Conti	...	Dolek Berson
Lisa Eichhorn	...	Rachel Apt
Gerald Hiken	...	Fischel Shpunt
Rachel Roberts	...	Regina Kowalska
Philip Sterling	...	Reb Mazur
Eli Wallach	...	Mauritzi Apt
Laurent Aidenbaum	...	David Apt
Rosanna Arquette	...	Halinka Apt
Roberts Blossom	...	Kuchaski
James Cromwell	...	Francisek
Griffin Dunne	...	Mordecai Apt
Christine Estabrook	...	Rutka
Richard Frank	...	Stefan Mazor
John Hefferdan	...	Concierge
Ron Hunter	...	Menkes

Runtime:

135 min

Country:

Poland | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Poland

Company:

Time-Life Television Productions

Trivia:

Last film of Rachel Roberts.

Worth seeing

I bought my own copy of The Wall after seeing the TV miniseries Uprising. Some 30 years ago, I read the novel upon which the film is based--a diary (modelled on Emmanuel Ringelblum's Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto) recounting the experiences of diarist Noach Levinson and his family--Dolek and Symka Berson (Dolek is Jewish--the anonymous reviewer described him wrongly as non-Jewish), Rachel, Mordechai, Halinka, David Apt, Rutka and Stefan Mazur and several others. Curiously, Noach Levinson is absent from the play and movie.

Filmed on location in Warsaw, The Wall shows horrific scenes of Jews being moved into the ghetto, loaded on the trains to the death camp of Treblinka. One scene shows hundreds of Jews receiving bread and marmalade for reporting for "resettlement". The uprising scenes show Nazis being killed by bullets, Molotov cocktails.

The characters are somewhat one-dimensional--no real development of them is given here (unlike the book). Rachel is a militant from the start, Halinka is an airhead all the way, Dolek simply drifts along.

Amazing how the film is relentless in portraying the horrors of ghetto life and the deportation. However, the dating is garbled in parts--deportations to Treblinka begin in April, 1941 instead of July, 1942. This is not an insignificant issue since the death camps were not operative until late 1941 and 1942--Treblinka did not begin operations until July, 1942.

Somewhat curiously, no attention is given to the party allegiances of the ghetto underground which united Zionists, socialists, communists and other groupings.

Still, for somebody wanting an introduction to the Warsaw ghetto, this might be the appropriate film.