© Oliver B. Pollak
RICHMOND, California — Australian, New Zealand and Canadian films take a while to migrate to the US. This can be agonizing, even more than waiting for next seasons Downton Abbey. Season closers leave hooked viewers on the edge of their compassion and anticipation. We’ve binged on A Place to Call Home, set in the imaginary town of Inverness in New South Wales, near Sydney; 800 Words in a small New Zealand coastal town; and Murdoch Mysteries set in turn of the century Toronto. They are all cerebral and entertaining with a human interest ethical mainspring.
But A Place to Call Home rises to special Jewish attention because it is framed around Marta Dusseldorp playing the heroic role of Sarah Adams, Australian Catholic convert to Judaism. It starts in 1930s Paris where Sarah married Dr. René Nordmann played by her real life husband, Ben Winspear. She endures World War Two, the Holocaust, and French Resistance. Australians survived` the Japanese prisoner of war camps associated with the seven-Oscar winner 1957 film Bridge on the River Kwai, based on Pierre Boulle’s 1952 novel.
But can Sarah survive strident Australian predatory anti-Semitism, her Catholic mother disowning her, aristocratic snobbishness and shunning, sexual harassment, political intrigue, daughter trading, prejudice against Aborigines, the Bligh materfamilias as starched and crotchety/ornery/hide bound as Downton’s Violet Crowley, bohemian lifestyle, the biased intrigue in a rural small town hospital, and secret gay passion. At episode 47 the issue is whether her born out of wedlock son David will be raised as a Jew or Christian.
All the characters have their demons, post traumatic stresses, hidden agendas, and tightly bound mid-century mores and hypocrisy. The characters evolve, even improve, over the course of 47 episodes. Some become more hardened in their sociopathic behavior.
Started in 2013, 5 years have produced 52 episodes; we have seen 47 out of 52, maximum binging, five episodes a day. Created by Bevan Lee, produced by Australian Channel Seven, cancelled after two seasons, and picked up by Foxtel.
Episode 47 aired on Australian television on October 8, 2017; we had to wait until November 25. Not so bad considering, our Canadian cousins saw the debut of the 11th season of Murdoch Mysteries, on September 26, 2017, and we have to wait till January 2018.
There are about as many Jews in San Diego County as there are in the much larger Australian continent. Australia’s first Jews came as convicts transported to Botany Bay in 1788. San Diego’s first Jew arrived in 1850. The saga A Place to Call Home, has been called “Down Under Downton.” It appears on Amazon Prime Acorn TV, fast moving, no advertisements. Happy viewing.
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Pollak is a freelance writer based in Richmond, California.
A Place to Call Home is one of the best series since Downton Abbey. I so loved all the characters and the drama. However. I have been watching it here in Canada on my iPad through ACORN and got as far as Sarah expecting a baby and Then it STOPPED advising me that it is not available in Canada. I feel like I have lost a loving member of my family.can you please explain what is happening. My subscription with ACORN is paid up to date.
Dear Gladys Gates,
I’ll be your helpful, your almost spoiler. You can google “A Place to Call Home,” and there is webpage that gives the story line synopsis all the way through the mid fifties, episode and chronology.
Best,
Oliver