Zanis
Lipke was a gruff, anti-Communist, blue collar booze-smuggler. He is not Hollywood’s
stereotypical image of a dashing hero-figure, by any stretch of the
imagination. Yet, he also had a Communist daughter, a Jewish best-friend, and a
healthy aversion to oppressive authority. Probably the last characteristic most
directly spurred him to save at least 50 Jewish Latvians during the National
Socialist occupation (it also made him a suspicious outsider during the
subsequent Soviet occupation too). Although more widely-reported rescuers like
Schindler saved greater numbers of people, Lipke did more than most with his limited
resources. The under-heralded Lipke is finally depicted on-screen, as the
subject of Davis Simanis Jr.’s The Mover, which releases today on DVD,
from Menemsha Films.
Lipke
is a loving family man, but he is definitely not a touchy-feely type. He is
alarmed by his daughter’s survival prospects after the Germans drove out the
Soviets, but she is determined to try her luck behind the Russian lines
(ultimately, she would be executed by her fellow Communists rather than the
Nazis, but such ironies fall outside Simanis’s focus on Lipke’s rescue
activities).
Initially,
the realist in Lipke rebuffs his friend Arke Smolansky when he seeks shelter for
his daughter, but the resulting guilt sickens him. Soon, he is reluctantly
sheltering Jewish fugitives at his workplace, until an informer betrays them.
It is a close shave for Lipke, but instead of scaring him into submission, it
motivates him to redouble his efforts closer to home. With his wife’s grudging acquiescence,
Lipke constructs a secret bunker under his work-shed, where he shelters dozens
of escapees from the ghetto, with the intention of ferrying them to safety
hidden in his truckloads of scavenged furniture (hence the title).
The
Mover might
sound like it follows a predictable arc (one established in films like Schindler’s
List, In Darkness, and Saviors in the Night), but we should
never allow ourselves to become blasé about the heroism Lipke displayed or the systemic
horrors he witnessed. In fact, veteran Latvian thesp Arturs Skrastin is quite
remarkable as Lipke, realistically portraying his curtness and abrasiveness, before
viscerally conveying the shock and abject revulsion he felt while observing Rumbula
Massacre, leaving him shaken to his core.
In
fact, the Rumbula sequences land like a gut-punch, knocking the wind out of the
audience. Throughout the film, but particularly in these scenes, Simanis shows
a sharp eye for Spartan but haunting imagery. Indeed, The Mover proves
we did indeed need another film about the Holocaust, because we haven’t seen
the genocidal crimes before in quite the way Simanis presents them.
Frankly,
there is also room for another Lipke film. Although Lipke was never celebrated
in his captive homeland during his lifetime, according to the Times of Israel, he persisted providing a safe harbor to Jewish Refuseniks attempting
to escape the USSR. It would require a full epic to do his entire life justice,
but Simanis’s tightly concentrated film runs an economical ninety-minutes (and
never drags). Very highly recommended, The Mover is now available on
DVD, from Menemsha Films.
