Presence 2024 Movie Review. A Small Film Succeeds Where Bigger Films Failed.

 

Presence 2024
A small film succeeds where bigger films failed

 

"For English, press one."

 

"Please listen carefully. Our menu options have changed."

 

"Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received."

 

"All our representatives are helping others. We will return your call at a time convenient to us, after you have fallen to the floor and are sobbing uncontrollably."

 

Some of us have lost some genetic lottery. Cancer haunts our families. We hear these phrases when, struggling to sound calm, we inquire about our loved ones, when we schedule ourselves, and when we request our prognosis.

 

Which is worse, a cancer diagnosis or navigating the health care steeple chase? A twenty-something girl treats you like a slab of meat while shoving you into a big machine. God didn't gift cancer cells with awareness. When those cells attack your body it doesn't say anything about human nature. When a fellow human is mean to you for no good reason as you shiver from cold, fear, and shame in your hospital gown, it gets to you.

 

In November, 2024, I coped with my latest perch on the limin between life and death as I usually do. I wasn't taking drugs. I was cleaning, writing, hiking, bopping to great music, soaking in hot baths, shopping for groceries, and going to the movies. These activities are my therapy, my miracle drugs, and my best friends.

 

Friends? "Cancer ghosting" is a thing. The people around you recoil from you. At first, I felt marooned. But then I realized that their ghosting me was just nature taking its course. I was updating my will, giving away belongings, and wondering whether I'd soon be reunited with departed loved ones. The folks who retreated from me were, simply, living in, and involved with, a different dispensation. They were moving through the colorful, physical, concrete world of life, with all its promises of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. My friends were doing that necessary work that we all do – investing in life while alive, and avoiding death. Cancer ghosting can leave you feeling very alone, but as Nietzsche said, when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. At least the abyss was willing to hang out with me.

 

In January, 2025, I was going for a walk and listening to NPR over my headphones. When I tune in I usually hear a story about how blacks are suffering in white supremacist America, or how gays are suffering in homophobic America. I wait out the propaganda and listen for the quality programming that sneaks in.

 

A man was speaking. He was a white guy, older, even-tempered, quietly and intelligently witty, at home in the world and with himself.  Ghost stories, the man was saying, are "essentially hopeful … the very premise means that there's an afterlife. Something comes beyond" death, he said. I am intimidated by scary movies but this guy was giving me a new way to look at them.

 

The man continued in a voice, that, unlike so much I hear on NPR, was not shrill, or griping, or demanding, or haranguing. In this same tone of voice, this man might be ordering a car part or telling a child a bedtime story. This mature man knew that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, and he recognized that it all comes out in the wash.

 

"In my own life," he said, "during periods that I would describe as traumatic, I felt more open to people around me, and maybe had a little easier time perceiving their own difficulties or their own pain. I wondered, if a person goes through trauma, does that open you up to sense other things that you couldn't sense before?" He mentioned a girl named Chloe. Chloe, he said, is "an open wound. She's been through this horrific experience, and so she is open to the universe." It is kind, this man was saying, to make eye contact with someone in pain and to say, "I'm sorry that you suffer."

 

This man didn't have an ax to grind. He was speaking in the most universal terms about trauma and death. He wasn't talking about how hard it is to be black and to have a ghost in your house, or to be trans and to go through trauma, or to be gay and to get a scary diagnosis. He was talking about universal stuff: life, death, the space between. His speech was not excluding, dividing, singling out for blame, or for settling scores. His speech was inviting and truly inclusive. Such speech is rare on NPR. He sounded the way you'd imagine a small town doctor in a Norman Rockwell painting would sound. His words were the most soothing words I had heard in my latest dance with death.

 

That man is screenwriter David Koepp. Let's see if you've heard of the films for which he wrote the script: Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, Spider Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Carlito's Way, Stir of Echoes, Ghost Town, Panic Room, and other films. His output has earned billions of dollars worldwide. Koepp has written the script for the 2024 film Presence, a ghost story. Well, I'll be darned. I had sought comfort from friends, who "ghosted" me, and from a Catholic priest, who did not have time for me. Once again, Hollywood was coming to the rescue.

The Brutalist 2024 Movie Review: Overrated, Bloated, Self-Indulgent Agitprop

 The Brutalist is a Must-See Masterpiece

 

Or is it self-indulgent, exploitative, Hollywood agitprop?

 

I have never witnessed the avalanche of acclaim for a new release such as I've seen for the 2024 film The Brutalist. The Brutalist is the biopic of a fictional character. Adrien Brody plays Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who is commissioned to build a Doylestown, Pennsylvania community center in the Brutalist architectural style. A man of intense artistic dedication and integrity, he overcomes roadblocks, and realizes his dream.

 

Why is a movie about a Hungarian immigrant in Doylestown, PA advancing like a tornado through a wheat field, toppling critics into adoring prostration? Filmmaker Brady Corbet doesn't understand. "If something is really radical, people initially don't like it … people are connecting with The Brutalist … I'm completely confused."

 

Below, a review of reaction to the film, a summary of the film, and then my own take on The Brutalist.

Queer 2024 Starring Daniel Craig Movie Review

 Google has made my other blog invisible. Until I find a solution to that, for the time being, I will be posting material that I would have posted on the other blog here. It will not be related to Polish Jewish relations. 

Below, a review of the "Queer," a 2024 film starring Daniel Craig. 

Queer 2024 Starring Daniel "Bond, James Bond" Craig
Beat ideas literally killed people

The 2024 film Queer is inspired by a novella by Beat Movement co-founder William S. Burroughs. Burroughs wrote Queer in 1952, but it was not published till 1985. Queer is directed by award-winning, 53-year-old Italian director Luca Guadagnino. Guadagnino has won praise for his films Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All, and Challengers. Between 2006 and 2021, star Daniel Craig played James Bond. After retiring as Bond, Craig took on the role of detective Benoit Blanc in the "Knives Out" franchise. Co-star Drew Starkey is a newcomer. He has made an impression playing a troubled teen on the Netflix drama Outer Banks.

Queer's thin plot: an American, William Lee (Daniel Craig) is pursuing a life of casual hook-ups and drug use in Mexico in the 1950s. There, Lee encounters the much younger Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a former sailor. Craig is 56; Starkey is 31. Starkey appears to be in his early twenties in Queer. Lee lusts after Allerton, but Allerton keeps his emotional and physical distance from Lee, even while they are having sex.

Many read the film as a treatment of unrequited love. Wikipedia classifies Queer as a "period romantic drama." For director Luca Guadagnino, Queer is "about connection. When you meet someone with whom you  know you have a connection, no matter what complications arise, no matter what the cultural or emotional interruptions … the strength of it is eternal." Guadagnino says Queer is "a story of unsynchronized love." Daniel Craig insists that "Allerton is as in love with Lee as Lee is in love with Allerton … Allerton just can't show it." Queer, Craig says "deals with many universal themes about love, desire, loneliness and the need to connect."

King Charles Fails to Acknowledge Poles as Victims of Nazi Germany

 

Full story here 

"Auschwitz did not suddenly fall from the sky," Marian Turski / Moishe Turbowicz, 98-year-old Auschwitz Survivor

 

“Auschwitz did not suddenly fall from the sky.
Auschwitz crept up, tiptoed along with small steps, moved closer and closer, until the things that happened here began.

Thou shalt not be indifferent in the face of lies about history.

Thou shalt not be indifferent when the past is distorted for today’s political needs.

Thou shalt not be indifferent when any minority faces discrimination.

Thou shalt not be indifferent when any authority violates the existing social contract.

Be faithful to this commandment. The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not be indifferent.”

Marian Turski, Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor

birth name: Moshe Turbowicz

Esteemed gathered people, friends, I am one of those still alive and few who were in this place almost until the last moment before liberation. On January 18, my so-called evacuation from the Auschwitz camp began, which after six and a half days turned out to be a Death March for more than half of my fellow prisoners. We were together in a 600-person column. In all probability, I will not live to see another anniversary. Such are human rights.

 

So forgive me if there will be some emotion in what I will say. This is what I would like to say first of all to my daughter, my granddaughter, whom I thank for being here in the hall, my grandson: I am talking about those who are the same age as my daughter, my grandchildren, and so about the new generation, especially the youngest, the very youngest, even younger than them.

 

When the World War broke out, I was a teenager. My father was a soldier and was badly shot in the lungs. It was a tragedy for our family. My mother came from the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border, where armies rolled through, pillaging, plundering, raping, burning villages, so as not to leave anything for those who would come after them. So you could say that I knew first-hand, from my father and mother, what war was. But despite everything, although it was only 20, 25 years, it seemed as distant as the Polish uprisings of the 19th century, as the French Revolution.

 

When I meet young people today, I realize that after 75 years they seem a little tired of this topic: war, the Holocaust, the Shoah, and genocide. I understand them. That is why I promise you, young people, that I will not tell you about my suffering. I will not tell you about my experiences, my two Death Marches, how I ended the war weighing 32 kilograms, on the verge of exhaustion and life. I will not tell you about what was the worst, the tragedy of separation from loved ones, when after the selection you sense what awaits them. No, I will not talk about it. I would like to talk to my daughter's generation and my grandchildren's generation about yourselves.

 

I see that Mr. President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen is among us. Do you remember, Mr. President, when you hosted me and the leadership of the International Auschwitz Committee, when we talked about those times? At one point you used the following phrase: "Auschwitz ist nicht vom Himmel gefallen". Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. We could say, as we say here: obvious obviousness.

 

Of course it didn't fall from the sky. This may seem like a trivial statement, but there is a profound and very important mental shortcut in it. Let's travel for a moment in our thoughts, in our imagination, to the early 1930s in Berlin. We are almost in the city center. The district is called Bayerisches Viertel, the Bavarian Quarter. Three stops from Kudamm, the zoo. Where the metro station is today, there is Bayerischer Park - Bavarian Park. And then one day in those early 1930s a sign appears on the benches: "Jews are not allowed to sit on these benches." You could say: unpleasant, unfair, it's not OK, but after all there are so many benches around, you can sit somewhere else, there is no misfortune.

 

It was a district inhabited by German intelligentsia of Jewish origin, Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner Nelly Sachs, industrialist, politician, and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau lived there. Then a sign appeared in the swimming pool: "Jews are not allowed in this swimming pool." Again, you could say: it's not pleasant, but Berlin has so many places to swim, so many lakes, canals, almost Venice, so you can go somewhere else.

 

At the same time, a sign appears somewhere: "Jews are not allowed to belong to German singing associations". So what? They want to sing, make music, let them gather separately, they will sing. Then a sign and an order appears: "Jewish, non-Aryan children are not allowed to play with German, Aryan children". They will play by themselves. And then a sign appears: "We sell bread and food products to Jews only after 5 p.m.". This is already a complication, because there is less choice, but after all you can also shop after 5 p.m.

 

Attention, attention, we are starting to get used to the idea that someone can be excluded, that someone can be stigmatized, that someone can be alienated. And so slowly, gradually, day by day, people are starting to get used to it – both victims and perpetrators and witnesses, those we call bystanders , are starting to get used to the idea and thought that this minority that produced Einstein, Nelly Sachs, Heinrich Heine, the Mendelssohns, is different, that it can be pushed out of society, that these are alien people, that these are people who spread germs, epidemics. This is already terrible, dangerous. This is the beginning of what may happen in a moment.

 

The government of the time is on the one hand pursuing a clever policy, because, for example, it is meeting the workers' demands. May 1st has never been celebrated in Germany – here they are. On a day off from work, they are introducing Kraft durch Freude ["strength through joy"]. So an element of workers' holidays. They are able to overcome unemployment, they are able to play on national dignity: "Germany, rise from the shame of Versailles. Restore your pride". And at the same time, this government sees that people are slowly becoming numb, indifferent. They stop reacting to evil. And then the government can afford to further accelerate the process of evil.

 

And then it all comes suddenly, namely: a ban on hiring Jews for work, a ban on emigration. And then there will be quick sending to ghettos: to Riga, to Kaunas, to my ghetto, the Łódź ghetto – Litzmannstadt. From there, most will be sent to Kulmhof, Chełmno nad Nerem, where they will be murdered with exhaust gases in trucks, and the rest will go to Auschwitz, where they will be murdered with Zyklon B in modern gas chambers. And here, what the president said is true: “Auschwitz did not suddenly fall from the sky.” Auschwitz stomped, toddled with small steps, approached, until what happened here happened.

 

My daughter, my granddaughter, my daughter's peers, my granddaughter's peers – you may not know the name Primo Levi. Primo Levi was one of the most famous prisoners of this camp. Primo Levi once used the following phrase: "It happened, which means it can happen. It means it can happen everywhere, all over the world."

 

I will share with you one personal memory: in '65 I was on a scholarship in the United States in America and that was the height of the battle for human rights, for civil rights, for the rights of the African-American people. I had the honor of marching with Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery. And then people who learned that I had been in Auschwitz asked me: "Do you think that something like this could only happen in Germany? Could it happen somewhere else?" And I told them: "It can happen here. If you violate civil rights, if you don't appreciate the rights of minorities, if you eliminate them. If you bend the law, as they did in Selma, then this can happen." What to do? You yourselves, I told them, if you can defend the constitution, your rights, your democratic order, by defending the rights of minorities - then you can overcome it.

 

In Europe, we mostly come from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Both believers and non-believers accept the Ten Commandments as their canon of civilization. My friend, the president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Roman Kent, who spoke here five years ago during the previous anniversary, could not come here today. He came up with the 11th commandment, which is the experience of the Shoah, the Holocaust, the terrible era of contempt. It goes like this: do not be indifferent.

 

And this is what I would like to tell my daughter, this is what I would like to tell my grandchildren. My daughter's peers, my grandchildren's peers, wherever they live: in Poland, in Israel, in America, in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe. This is very important. Do not be indifferent when you see historical lies. Do not be indifferent when you see that the past is being stretched to suit current political needs. Do not be indifferent when any minority is discriminated against. The essence of democracy is that the majority rules, but democracy is that the rights of minorities must be protected. Do not be indifferent when any authority violates accepted social agreements, already existing. Be faithful to the commandment. Eleventh commandment: do not be indifferent.

 

Because if you do, you won't even realize that some Auschwitz will suddenly fall from the sky on you, on your descendants.

 

Source is here https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1940080,1,marian-turski-auschwitz-nie-spadlo-z-nieba-nie-badzcie-obojetni.read

Coming Out As Pro Israel on Facebook

 This essay is about ten years old. All too pertinent today as it was then.

Today of course is the 80th anniversary of the Red Army moving in to Auschwitz,
and Holocaust Reembrace Day 

 

Hadas Fogel

Coming Out As Pro-Israel on Facebook

I recently spelled out my support for Israel on Facebook. This is new for me. I'm an American baby boomer, and I always took it for granted that my country supported Israel, and that forces infinitely more powerful than I had the job covered. There's another reason I previously hadn't said much about Israel. I'm Polish-Slovak-American, and I am Catholic. Polish Catholics are stereotyped as the world's worst antisemites. Poles suck antisemitism with their mother's milk, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir famously declared.

My book, "Bieganski, the Brute Polak Stereotype," is devoted to analysis of this negative image of Poles and other Eastern Europeans. In "Bieganski" I am very critical of prominent Jewish authors and scholars. I have received hate mail on a weekly basis for over a decade. This messy reality is part of why I hadn't previously spelled out my support for Israel.

On June 12, 2014 three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped. That triggered combat between Israelis and Hamas in Gaza. This conflict dominated the headlines and suddenly, for the first time in my life, I felt called publicly to articulate why I support Israel.

Kosciuszko Squadron mentioned (but misspelled)

 

"Berlin Diary" and Poles Fighting Heroically; Poles Assessed as Not Human; Poles Executed for "Race Pollution"

 A friend is reading Berlin Diary. He sends me screencaps of pages. 

A Pole executed for contact with a German. 

Poles fighting heroically against Nazis. 

Germans saying that Poles are not human. 

If only people other than my friend were aware of this history. 

Alan Dershowitz Lies and Mongers Hatred against Christians -- Again

 Alan Dershowitz is a confused old man, an attention whore, and a dishonest hate monger who kisses Trump's behind. But you knew all that. 

Someone I thought of as a "friend" sent me the article, below. It is full of lies and hatred. 

I reminded this "friend" that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world today, and that spreading hate and lies like this is used to justify that persecution. 

I have a lot going on in my personal life so I don't have time to go through this lousy piece of blood libel point by point, but maybe someone will want to address this in the comments section. Fact based, hate free comments only. Resisting the hatred of some not all Jews for Christians DOES NOT justify responding with antisemitism. 

And, no, I do not support any identification of Jesus with Muslim Arabs. Jesus was a JEW. No debate. It's the rest of the Dershowitz piece, full of hate mongering lies, that is vile. 

PS: I'm dealing with life/death health issues and I have been doing so since a medical emergency in early November. It's been two months of fear, sadness, what work can I get done before I die, including work on Bieganski, looking at the will, the card donating my body to medical research, and endless medical appointments and big medical bills. 

A social media friend, someone I liked and trusted, someone I'd known for ten previous years, in the midst of all this, a person who had previously said that she "loved" me, called me "vile" "pathetic" and a supporter of terrorism because I supported Kalama Harris in the 2024 presidential election, and was very opposed to Trump. 

And then the piece below comes in my mailbox the very day I had surgery.

These two communications epitomize  disregard for the humanity of the person to whom one is speaking. In both cases, my interlocutor was a Jewish person who saw me, in the moment, only as a -- what -- non-Jew? Enemy? Catholic? Polish Catholic? 

Not as a human being they'd been friends with for years, a supporter of Israel, someone focused on life/death issues. 

Just a person to bash. 

No, this is not how all Jews behave. No, this is not a comment on a religion or an ethnicity. It's a comment on my own personal experience in the past months, an experience that happened more than once, with others as well. 

People resorting to tribalism and forgetting humanity. People of all stripes do it. To the extent that Jews do it, I hope some will choose to examine this behavior and address it. 

and to Jewish friends who did not take this route, thank you. 

The Dershowitz piece is below.