This poignant drama is based on an award-winning novel by Australian Lily Brett, inspired by the true story of an Auschwitz survivor returning to Poland with his daughter.
The versatile Stephen Fry stars as the father, Edek. Lena Dunham (creator and star of the TV series Girls) is the daughter, Ruth.
Ruth’s parents were both Holocaust survivors who never spoke about their time at Auschwitz, their lives in Poland before the Nazi invasion or their lost families.
Ruth, a New York journalist, now wants to know about her parents’ past.
It is 1991, Americans can finally visit Eastern Europe after the long years of Soviet control and Ruth has carefully planned her Polish itinerary to take her from the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto to Edek’s former home and to Auschwitz.
She was surprised when her father insisted on going with her.
“You don’t know Poland. You can’t go on your own,” he said.
Fry, whose own grandfather was a victim of Nazi persecution, plays the gregarious and often infuriating Edek, who befriends everyone he meets but keeps trying to upset his daughter’s plans.
He is quiet when he sees familiar places, like the family’s former factory which Ruth knew nothing about.
When they find his family’s now decrepit former apartment they are invited in and offered tea by an old couple who have lived there since 1940, when Edek’s family were forced to leave.
The couple insist that the former occupants left no personal belongings, but Edek whispers to Ruth that he recognises his mother’s teapot and a silver dish.
Later Ruth returns to the shabby apartment with a local lad as interpreter and pays the old couple, who are greedy for American dollars, an outrageous price for the teapot and silver dish, plus the complete set of china and a fur coat embroidered with his father’s initials.
With his bushy beard and booming Polish accent, Fry is an appealing Edek who constantly exasperates his daughter, who is torn between remorse for inflicting him with painful memories and irritation at his attempts to derail her trip.
Fry and Dunham are an engaging pair as father and daughter, affectionately teasing and annoying each other, and lifting the tone from the grim reality at the heart of the film.
Directed and co-written by German director Julia von Heinz, Treasure is loosely based on Brett’s award-winning novel Too Many Men (which has now been reissued as Treasure).
This touching and relevant film is the third part of von Heinz’s Aftermath trilogy which deals with the repercussions of the Holocaust in Germany and worldwide.
Now showing at Luna Leederville, Luna On SX and the Windsor Cinema.
Watch the trailer…
