Kosher Movies: The Great Escaper
My adult children decided to go through old family photo albums one Shabbat afternoon. As we perused them together, I realized that neither I nor the kids could identify many of the people in the pictures. Much time had passed and we could only remember the people in the photos of more recent vintage. Such is the limited power of memory. The Great Escaper deals with preserving memories, especially those that helped define us along life’s journey.
Bernie Jordan is a veteran of World War II, and he and his wife Rene consider traveling to France for a D-Day trip on the anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Although too late to get tickets for the excursion, Rene encourages Bernie to take the ferry to France anyway.
On his solo trip to France, he has flashbacks of his wartime experiences with bombs exploding on the beach. Meanwhile, the nurses at the independent living facility where Bernie and Rene live are panicking about Bernie’s sudden disappearance. The press make his disappearance a cause celebre, and Bernie’s absence from his retirement home becomes a national news story. Underneath the façade of media attention, however, is the narrative of man still possessing demons from the past and memories of lost friends.
When he returns home and to his loving wife Rene, they go to the seaside together to watch the sunrise. Their present love for each other gives them peace in their old age. The terrible memories are still there but they are not all consuming.
The power of memory is a central theme in Judaism. Emuna Braverman, a Jewish educator, observes that days devoted to memory are important. She writes: “There may be a certain psychological wisdom to days of remembrance. Perhaps we need to have a unique moment devoted solely to remembering, a day where we can freely indulge and give vent to that painful emotion. No holding it in; no more stiff upper lip.”
Sometimes people wish they could forget painful events, but perhaps confronting these traumatic moments will enable us to manage the rest of our lives. Facing a terrible memory may help us diminish our sense of pain and vulnerability in the present.
The Great Escaper takes us back to the horrific battles of World War II in which many young men’s lives were cut short. Life goes on for the survivors, but the images of friends who were killed in the fighting stays with those who survived.
Braverman reminds us of the Jewish people’s need to remember. She observes: “And for those who didn’t fight in Israel’s wars — for Americans and Israelis who may have chosen to build their lives elsewhere or for children too young to remember the excitement of ’67, the terror of ’73, the disaster in Lebanon. For those who weren’t born at the time of the Gulf War or were infants during the Intifada — they need a day of remembrance. They need to know all the ways in which we’ve struggled for our people. They need to understand what this means so they won’t cavalierly toss away what others have struggled so long and hard to preserve.
They need to learn our history so that they, too, will be prepared to stand up and fight — whether with words or with arms, whether with the intellect or with might, whether with the spiritual or the physical.
There are those who are in danger of forgetting — those who don’t even know what there is to remember. For them — and for future generations — we need these days of remembrance.”
When Bernie Jordan finally confronts the tragic events of the past, he integrates those incidents into his life and becomes a whole person. It makes him treasure the present more after he has laid to rest the haunting demons of the past.