Adam Resurrected, Blu-ray (2009)
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi, Ayelet Zurer
Studio: Image Entertainment ID6287HKBD [Released Sept. 22, 09]
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic/enhanced color 1080p HD
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, PCM stereo
Subtitles: Spanish, English SDH
Extras: Audio commentary track by director Paul Schrader, Behind the Scenes, Deleted Scenes, Q&A at Haifa Int. Film Festival, Theatrical trailer
Length: 106 minutes
Rating: *****
A brave, innovative and very moving film which is quite far from the typical Holocaust film. This shared German/U.S./Israeli production had a similar effect on me compared to Schindler’s List, and its probably the finest portrayal Goldblum has done in his entire career.
Adam is horribly tormented by his degradation at a WWII concentration camp run by a Nazi officer played by Willem Dafoe. He lives in a ficticious (there was nothing like it in Israel at the time) experimental asylum in the Israeli desert in 1960, with other Holocaust victims with mental problems. He was a top circus-type entertainer in Berlin before the war, and entertains the others with his antics, as well as having a relationship with a nurse at the facility. His horrors include having had his wife murdered and being forced to play the dog of the Nazi officer. However, Adam begins to come out of his loopy behavior when he reaches out to a mentally-disturbed young boy in the asylum who is also pretending to be a dog. One of the most moving scenes in the film is when he directs all the patients to raise their arms carrying their concentration camp number tattoos and shout that they are alive.
The filming, editing and acting is superb on all levels, and the picture and sound quality typical of the best Blu-rays. Some of the scenes are highly disturbing, but so is the theme of the film. The crew and actors came from all three countries, and none of the Germans were given Nazi roles. The 24-minute Making Of… documentary is quite informative, and the longest of the deleted scenes is a surprise – a sort of post-Holocaust punishment Adam has meted out to the Nazi officer, which is never alluded to in the final film, wisely I would say (as with many deleted scenes). The image and sound is very poor in the long film festival extra, probably best avoided.
– John Sunier
