Primo Levi's Journey (La Strada di Levi) (2006)
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86% of critics liked it
(21 reviews) -
55% of users liked it
(265 ratings)
Primo Levi's harrowing memoir If This Is a Man appeared in the U.S. in 1959 as Survival in Auschwitz; historians now regard it as the most critically important written conveyance of the horrors within the Nazi concentration camps. But the account in that text only represents half of Levi's… More Primo Levi's harrowing memoir If This Is a Man appeared in the U.S. in 1959 as Survival in Auschwitz; historians now regard it as the most critically important written conveyance of the horrors within the Nazi concentration camps. But the account in that text only represents half of Levi's story. The other half began after his release from Auschwitz. Instead of simply returning to his native Turin, Levi and 600 others were forcibly shipped east -- thousands of miles away from their homes. Thus began a grueling, trans-national journey that Levi undertook, across war-ravaged Europe and back to Turin -- a journey that took all of 12 months to complete, and that filled him, alternately, with incredulity, anger, wonder, and astonishment -- as he reflected on the meaning of his own survival in the camps. Levi died in 1987; as a tribute to the belletrist and historian, acclaimed nonfiction filmmaker Davide Ferrario (Far from Rome, Borderline) retraces Levi's route with his cameras in his documentary Primo Levi's Journey. Ferrario travels through Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Romania, Hungary, Germany, and south to his native country, evaluating, at each stop, the sociological climate and the various ways in which Eastern Europe has alternately evolved and remained static over the prior 60 years. Ferrario touches on numerous issues relevant to the contemporary sociopolitical landscape of Eastern Europe, as the Russian satellite countries struggle to develop national identities, and concurrently reflects on the experiences of Levi's original trip. Celebrated Polish filmmaker Andrezj Wajda appears early on and serves as a "tour guide" for one of the first legs of the voyage. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Directed By
- Davide Ferrario
- Written By
- Marco Belpoliti, Davide Ferrario
- Genres
- Documentary, Special Interest
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Aug 17, 2007 Limited
- Studio
- Cinema Guild
Critic Reviews
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Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Italian documentary filmmaker Davide Ferrario, who specializes in what he calls "on the road" documentaries, decided to retrace Primo Levi's steps in modern Europe. It was a wise choice.
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Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Primo Levi's Journey is a rather unfocused but ultimately provocative portrait of Eastern Europe.
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Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
The film lacks a certain coherence, and Levi -- one of Italy's most important postwar writers -- is mostly relegated to an excuse for a sociopolitical travelogue.
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Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Vividly impressionistic and delightfully curious.
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Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
A profound meditation on the unevenness of history, reminding us -- as Faulkner once remarked -- that the past not only isn't dead, it isn't really past at all.
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Cast
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Chris Cooper
as Narrator (English)
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Umberto Orsini
as Narrator (Italian)
- Andrzej Wajda
- Ruslana Bilozir
- Modesto Ferrarini
- Mario Rigoni Stern
- Primo Levi
