Fugitive Pieces

Fugitive Piecesis pleasant but as a work of art is a bit too lush, writes DONALD CLARKE

Two films from 2007 concerning wartime atrocities in Poland finally make their way into cinemas this week. There are good things in Jeremy Podeswa's adaptation of Anne Michaels's greatly admired novel, but, when set beside the angrier Katyn(see related review), it seems drowsy, overly aestheticised and, well, a bit up itself.

The story begins with young Jakob Beer watching as Nazis slaughter his family. He is rescued by a Greek archaeologist and taken home to live in a sunnier, but no less occupied part of Europe. From then on, the film zips backwards and forwards from Jakob’s experiences as a child to his often-miserable life as a writer in late 1950s Canada.

Insecurely manacled to Alex (Rosamund Pike), a slightly testy young woman, he has just finished a book that deals with his traumatic early experiences and more recent less serious crises.
One evening Alex reads the manuscript and discovers (or thinks she discovers) that her partner thinks her trivial. In a sense, she's right. After his childhood suffering, every action that doesn't skirt with fatality seems a littletrivial to him.

There is no question that Fugitive Piecesis a work of quality. Though not convincingly Jewish, Stephen Dillane is properly fragile as the older Jakob and Pike is significantly more substantial as Alex than directors have hitherto allowed her to be. The camera work is nice, the music is pretty and the scenery is gorgeous.

So what's the problem? Well, like The Reader, Fugitive Piecesjust feels a little bit too lush and chocolatey for a film whose driving energies emerge from the Holocaust. .

There are too many pretty words spoken over the action. The jazz in the 1950s section is tad too carefully chosen. True, the film offers a pleasant spot in which to wallow for two hours, but art on this subject should lay down a little more grit over its smoother surfaces.