EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

The present is illuminated by the past. That is the simple yet moving theme behind Everything is Illuminated (2005), actor Live Schrieber’s first film as director. Based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, it is the story of, well, Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood), an odd, passive collector of artifacts of family members’ lives who travels to the Ukraine to find Augustine, the woman who saved his Grandfather in World War II. All he knows of Augustine is a faded sepia photograph of her together with his grandfather, and in the Ukraine he enlists tour guide Alex (Eugene Hutz) and Alex’s grandfather (Boris Leskin).

Everything is Illuminated negotiates tricky territory. The first half is an oddball comedy cum road movie that accentuates the quirks of its nudged-off-centre characters. Jonathan regards the world with distant, cautious curiosity through thick goggled glasses, silently dropping various objects in Ziploc bags for his collection of personal artifacts, and has trouble convincing his traveling companions that his vegetarianism isn’t a sign of mental deficiency. Alex is in love with Western pop culture, strutting gold-medallioned around the streets of Ukraine in trendy clothes and break dancing at the local disco, adept at linguistic gymnastics with the English language. And Alex’s grandfather thinks he is blind (he’s not) and has a deranged dog called Sammy Davis Junior Junior. Their adventures together in a tinpot car, puttering around the dingy towns and desolate countryside in search of Augustine’s town, are dourly humourous.

And then the tone of the film shifts to a serious, moving drama. The linchpin scene where it begins to do this I will not describe, but writer/director Schreiber manages to navigate the change and, more importantly, keep the viewer with him. The photography alters subtly in the last third of the film to become brighter, more hued and, well, illuminated. A shot of a house nestled within an expanse of luminous, aureate sunflowers is imbrued with a transcendent beauty. The travelers find Augustine, or at least her story, and it is connected with a Nazi atrocity, and also unexpectedly joins together another individual. As the past sheds its light upon the present, the story and characters grow introspective as they reexamine and shift their conceptions of the present.

At this point, the script could have been expanded and deepened by added more layers to the story. As such, Everything is Illuminated falls short of the transformative experience it could have been. Nevertheless, in what is essentially a three-character narrative, Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood, and Boris Leskin deliver simple, effective, humanistic performances, though Wood’s character can come across as somewhat flat. Even the crazed dog becomes strangely endearing.

The closing passages of Everything is Illuminated are deeply moving, which is a testament to the skill behind the acting and filmmaking. It is no mean feat to begin a story as an odd comedy and conclude it in affecting, humanistic drama.

Everything is Illuminated is available on DVD.

--
Directed by Liev Schreiber
Written by Liev Schreiber, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer

Starring:
Eugene Hutz....Alex
Elijah Wood....Jonathan Safran Foer
Boris Leskin....Grandfather
Lista....Laryssa Lauret