Review of Left Luggage

Introduction

Chaja (Laura Fraser), a philosophy student in 70`s Antwerp, having quit her job at a restaurant, desperately needs a way to pay her rent so reluctantly accepts a post as a babysitter to the Kalmans, a family of hasidic Jews. Chaja is an outgoing and modern twenty year old who quickly finds that her behaviour and dress sense are completely at odds with those of Mr. and Mrs. Kalman (Jeroen Krabbé and Isabella Rosselini) and their children. Chaja`s job is to look after the twin babies and four year old Simcha (Adam Monty) who has yet to speak and has a bladder control problem. Aiding Chaja through this is family friend Mr. Apfelschnitt (`Fiddler on the Roof`s Topol) who educates her about hasidic Jews, why they are `different` and how she may get through to Simcha.

Video

The 4:3 fullscreen transfer is slightly soft although whether this is a technical flaw or intentional to reinforce the period is unclear.

Audio

The film is dialogue dominated with little surround content so the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo is more than adequate and copes perfectly with the beautiful and haunting score by Henny Vrienten.

Features

The trailer is terrible so whoever was responsible for marketing the film should really have a close look at who produced it. The stills from the movie are typical of an EPK package but the biographies are well written and fairly comprehensive.

Conclusion

As you learn early on, the title refers to two suitcases full of the `family silver` that Chaja`s father (Maximilian Schell) buried before fleeing from the Nazis and is desperate to find. `Left luggage` is also a metaphor which creates the subtext of the film as the father isn`t so much looking for suitcases as for emotional baggage and a post-war identity.

I have a major problem with the casting of the film, as the actors are predominantly from the centre of Western Europe (Germany, Holland, Belgium and Austria) with the exceptions of Isabella Rossellini (Italy), Topol (Israel), Laura Fraser and Miriam Margolyes (England). This results in the cast speaking English in a plethora of different accents which begins to jar after a while as Chaja`s English accent seems completely out of place. I imagine it was only for distribution purposes that `Left Luggage` was filmed in English and not in Flemish, Dutch or German, using local actors; this would have given the film an authenticity it is sadly lacking. Also, the casting of Laura Fraser in the lead is a bizarre choice as she was a relative unknown and has gone on to appear in such poor fare as `Virtual Sexuality`, `Kevin & Perry Go Large`, `A Knight`s Tale` and `Vanilla Sky`, only the last of which appears in her biography! When she is on screen with the daughter of Ingrid Bergman, the Oscar nominated Topol and the Oscar winning Maximilian Schell, the gulf in class is enormous.

The acting aside, there is a lack of character development throughout the film which leads to caricatures rather than fully fleshed out and rounded characters. Director Jeroen Krabbé has a tendency to resort to cheap sentiment to make his points about identity and alienation. This is, at best lazy and, at worst, manipulative.

Despite its flaws, `Left Luggage` is a well shot and touching film but one that left me feeling that it has a niche audience - it is probably a film that would have a deeper resonance with a Jewish audience, particularly amongst those who lived through the war. Given that Jeroen Krabbé grew up as a Jew in post-war Holland, he has much in common with Mr. Kalman and this is probably why he played the part so well. However, and I hope this can`t be construed as offensive, I felt that the film was not aiming at a wide audience and is a film about Jews, for Jews. Notwithstanding this, I enjoyed `Left Luggage` and it reached me on an emotional level, although the nuances about Jewish identity went over my head.