Simon and the Oaks, directed by Lisa Ohlin (Sweden, Germany, Norway: 2011).
By Laurie Baron
Note: I haven’t written my column for several weeks because I’ve been giving lectures around the country. Indeed, I was stranded in West Hartford, Connecticut, for two extra days due to Hurricane Sandy. Having endured two other hurricanes in New England in my life, I am worried that I may be the source of global warming. Of course, I have been besieged by inquiries about when I would resume writing reviews. Would you believe one or two inquiries? Alright, so the silence has been deafening. Nevertheless, cyberspace abhors a vacuum and I plan to fill that void.
Lisa Ohlin’s adaptation of Marianne Fredriksson’s Simon and the Oaks ended its run at the La Jolla Village Cinema on November 8. Although not a great movie, it is a good and poignant one which is beautifully photographed and emotionally engrossing. I wish I could have written this review earlier, but hope that readers will find it informative if the film gets released in other San Diego theatres or when it appears on DVD.
The film is notable for broaching the topics of Sweden’s ambiguous response to Nazism and Swedish anti-Semitism. Although Sweden remained neutral during the war, it mollified the Third Reich by exporting it iron ore and permitting German supply and troop trains to traverse Swedish territory in support of the war effort. To a lesser degree than Switzerland, its banks laundered the gold and money confiscated from Hitler’s victims. When Germany was at the height of its military power, as one scene in the movie reveals, the Swedish government recorded the ancestry of its Jewish refugees in case it would be pressured in the future to enact racial legislation modeled on the Nuremberg Laws.
Despite restrictions on immigration, 3,000 Jews found refuge in Sweden before 1939. The characters Rubin, Iza, and their son Isak came from Germany in this period. The film briefly refers to the asylum Sweden extended to Norwegian Jews in 1942, but curiously does not mention the nearly 8,000 Jews from Denmark who were welcomed in the country in 1943. Neither does it tout the Wallenberg rescue mission in Budapest in 1944 nor the White Bus transports of 15,000 concentration camp inmates, including Jews, to Sweden in 1945. The shift from pro-Axis to pro-Allied policies mirrored the declining fortunes of the Wehrmacht in North Africa, the Soviet Union, and then on the Western front.
Setting the story when the Holocaust is ominously looming outside of Sweden’s borders adds a potentially lethal dimension to what is otherwise a melodrama about a Gentile and a Jewish family whose sons gravitate to the other’s father to fulfill their own proclivities. Simon dreams of far-off places, communes with oak trees, and loves reading. His father Erik is a carpenter who builds boats. He futilely attempts to dissuade his son from attending a private school, but grudgingly defers to his wife Karin’s opinion on the matter. At the school, Simon defends Isak from anti-Semitic bullies. After the two become friends, Simon goes to Isak’s house and discovers a world of affluence, ideas, and music that was lacking in his own upbringing. As the owner of a bookstore, Isak’s father Rubin nurtures Simon’s inquisitive mind.
Nazi rule already has left its psychological scars on Isak and his mother Iza. Iza teeters on the brink of insanity, fearing the Germans will invade Sweden and kill her family. When the German presence in Sweden becomes more threatening, she plunges into despair and attempts suicide. An incident of anti-Semitic harassment triggers Isak’s memories of being brutally beaten by members of the Nazi SA. With his wife hospitalized and his son in a catatonic state, Rubin asks Erik if Isak could live with his family. Erik rehabilitates Isak by teaching him the woodworking skills that Simon had rejected. Conversely, Rubin becomes Simon’s mentor in classical music. Rubin’s cultivation of Simon’s interests engenders Karin’s admiration for him which blossoms into affection and love.
Why Simon is so alienated from his parents emerges out of a family secret. It turns out he is the son of cousin Inga who had an affair with a German Jewish musician. The only proof of this is a love letter the musician wrote to her and which Erik wants Inga to destroy since it would mark Simon as a Jew according to Nazi racial criteria. Without any further spoilers, the remainder of the film concerns the revelation of this secret in the postwar period and its impact on the relationships Simon and Isak have with their parents and the women whom they court.
If this convoluted plot sounds overly contrived and melodramatic to you, you are right. But it is the credible rendering of it in acting, cinematography, and a moving musical score that prevent it from sinking to the level of a soap opera. This may stem from Ohlin’s attunement to the family dynamics of the film. Born in New York, her Swedish father took her to Sweden after he divorced her mother. In high school, she learned that deceased mother was Jewish. As she recalls, “I suddenly understood why I felt different from other people in Sweden. I found my place in history.” Simon and the Oaks captures what that revelation must have been like.
*
Lawrence Baron recently retired from being the Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University. He is the author of Projecting the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema (Rowman and Littlefield: 2005) and editor of The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (Brandeis University Press: 2011). He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com