SAN DIEGO — Song of Names is not simply a movie. It is a work of love and mourning. The music, so essential to the drama, travels through our ears and into our souls. After the movie opens in San Diego on Jan. 10, I doubt that anyone who views it will fail to be moved by the emotion behind it, however understated it is.
Based on a novel by Norman Lebrecht, the Francois Girard-directed movie is framed as a mystery. David Eli Rapoport, a young violin virtuoso from Poland, disappears before giving his greatly anticipated 1951 debut concert, for which his last rehearsal had occurred only four hours before. His unexplained disappearance crushed his mentor, Gilbert Simmonds, who had persuaded the boy’s family in Poland before World War II to permit “Dovidl” to live with the Simmonds family in London while he perfected his already considerable violin talents. Dovidl’s father agreed, giving the boy resin for his bow just before he boarded the train en route to his new life.
Thirty-five years after Dovidl’s performance, Gilbert’s son, Martin, who had been Dovidl’s boyhood companion and sometimes rival, was judging an amateur music competition. None of the young musicians had extraordinary talent — but one boy ran the resin up his bow, and then kissed it–exactly as Dovidl used to do. For Dovidl, that had been a near religious gesture, as perhaps one might kiss a siddur, or a mezuzah, or the fringes of a tallit — because for Dovidl, it had become sacred, as the last object his father had given him.
The grown-up Martin Simmonds, whom Dovidl called Motl, even though he was not Jewish, tracked down the young competitor and asked him who had taught him to resin his bow in that manner. He then followed a trail that took him from London to Poland to New York City, learning more and more about Dovidl’s life after his disappearance. The time-consuming, expensive search, caused Martin’s wife, Helen, considerable distress. Why was he spending so much time looking for him, and so little away from her? “I am the only one he’s got,” Martin responded, to which Helen retortsed “I am all you’ve got.”
As we in the audience accompany Martin on his search, we also learn more about his friendship, and his brotherhood in all but name with Dovidl. We see in flashback Dovidl’s bar mitzvah, and then in a shocking piece of cinema, a ceremony in which Dovidl — distressed over not knowing the fate of his family in the Holocaust — formally renounces his religion, cutting the tzitzit from his tallit and shredding his kippah as Martin watches in horror. Memorably, Dovidl told Martin that while ethnicity is permanent, not like something soluble in water: religion is a coat that you can take off when it gets too hot.
After a long search that takes us to Treblinka, Martin finally learns what has happened to Dovidl. This is not the end of the movie; it is only one of the dramatic high points. There remains for us to see the accusation, explanation, reconciliation, and a magnificent act of contrition that is the basis of the film’s title.
Even before singling out the actors for the marvelous job they did, I want to pay special tribute to violinist Ray Chen who performed the moving solos off camera and to Howard Shore, who was responsible overall for the music. I can’t imagine the film without the contributions of either of them.
Dovidl and Martin both were played by three different actors. For the years 9-13, respectively they were portrayed by Luke Doyle and Misha Handley; 17-23 by Jonah Hauer King and Gerran Howell, and as middle aged adults by the headliners Clive Owen and Tim Roth. The boys convincingly dramatized the rivalry-friendship-brotherhood of Dovidl and Martin, helping us to understand the intensity of feelings that would characterize their characters’ reconciliation 35 years later. Roth, who we meet early in the film, anchored our understanding of its plot, and Owen, as the adult David, brings the movie to an inspiring climax.
Of particular interest are two women in the cast: Martin’s wife Helen, played by Catherine McCormack, and Anna, a Polish woman who became Dovidl’s temporary lover, played by Magdalena Cieleka. Their characters were a study in contrast, one open, the other secretive. It was Anna who escorted Martin to Treblinka, where Dovidl once had played a solo for the ashes of his perished family.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com