The year is 1945, and the sounds of air raid sirens ring out in the night sky. A desperate group of Jewish prisoners are huddled together. When a young boy asks if they’re coming to save us, he’s told they’ll be dead before the allies get here. The opening sequence is void of hope, taking us inside the Jewish plight as they are forced to continue the “death march” westward, following Auschwitz’s liberation by Soviet forces. Without enough bullets to kill every Jewish prisoner, the Nazi’s are caught in their own desperate act. When Freddie (Lucas Lynggaard) appeals to a soldier to have sympathy for a boy who doesn’t have any shoes, he’s told, “You want him to have shoes, give him yours.”
From this bleak depiction of fear and desperation, director Annabel Jankel and screenwriter Michael Radford travel back to 1938, where Freddie runs jubilantly through the Viennese streets. His father (Ed Stoppard) scolds him for his carefree attitude and causing his mother to worry. These are dangerous times for the Jewish community. The resignation of Austria’s Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg and his instruction for Austrian troops to stand down places the country under Hitler’s control. This forces Freddie’s parents to send him and his brother away. He’s to go to England and Eric (George Sear) to the United States. Much of the story takes place in Paris, where Freddie meets Christos (Fernando Guallar), who secures him accommodation at a local hotel and a job at a Burlesque club, where the young man adopting the name Robert meets and falls in love with Jacqueline (Clara Rugaard). Based on a true story, Desperate Journey chronicles this seven year period in the long life of Freddie Knoller, who passed away in 2022, aged 100.
History has found itself trapped in a cycle of suffering. There are those chapters, the darkest in humankind’s history that have been incredulously repeated. And so, it’s necessary that Annabel Jankel and other filmmakers revisit humanity’s grave sins, because our enduring propensity for extreme violence needs to be remembered and challenged. One need only look to the present-day genocide perpetrated by the Israeli State, and the laissez-faire response by the international community to see our failure to learn from past mistakes.
In Desperate Journey, Jankel and Radford show us the reality of what happens when hatred and fear are able to set the value of a human life. It chills the blood, especially with the xenophobia towards the other that the right-wing stir to power their ascendency. Desperate Journey is a wise voice for anyone in our present-day who is willing to heed its counsel.
A vital source of nourishment for any story is the reflections it encourages from the audience. These need not always be telegraphed, rather left for the audience to decipher. Desperate Journey, generally chooses to be on the nose with its messaging, themes and ideas, but one reflection that has a subtlety is when one of the Jewish prisoners says, “the allies are winning, it will all be over soon.” It’s a moment that reflects on the fact that there are wars within wars, specifically the Jewish struggle to survive, that predates the Nazi persecution. And given the shock allied forces experienced on encountering the concentration camps, Desperate Journey offers a thought for how inside the broader conflict of WW2 was an ongoing private and historical conflict for the Jewish people.
Less discreet is the reality of the choices characters are forced to make. A drawn out scene between Freddie and his mother (Sienna Guillory), in which she tells him that if he loves her, he’ll leave, removes any subtle introspection about this tragedy that has been forced onto too many people. From this stems Desperate Journey’s shortcomings. Too often it lacks subtlety in its messaging and aesthetic. The film eventually settles once Freddie’s Parisian adventure begins, but until then, Jankel is guilty of allowing the film’s composer, Ilan Eshkeri, to indulge in sweeping and romantic music. This feels heavy-handed and is guilty of romanticising the tragic reality and arduous journey of the protagonist. While Desperate Journey draws from reality, Jankel and her collaborators fail to counter the severity of truth with art’s gentle and introspective touch, which the story would have benefited from.
In Jankel and her screenwriter’s hands, Desperate Journey pursues the romantic, eager to tap into the intrigue of adventure. The director and the writer follow a formula, rather than attempt to create a film with its own voice. Freddie’s friendship with Christos and the hotel owner, Mrs Huberman (Smadi Wolfman), his romance with Jacqueline and how he becomes involved with the French Resistance all feels casually constructed. The writing, direction and performance might fill these moments and interactions with heart, but there’s something about Desperate Journey that feels a bit like a painting-by-numbers exercise. Jankel and Radford know how to pull on the heartstrings, but at times they struggle to elevate the story above emotional provocation or exploitation.
Desperate Journey is in cinemas on Friday, November 28th.
