JAKOB THE LIAR

 

THREE STARS - Inspiring

 

 

       The human spirit cannot exist without hope.  The body may be imprisoned in a starving Jewish Ghetto or in an arrogant Nazi headquarters, but in either case, if there is no hope for the future the spirit languishes in despair.  That is why many are willing to die due to their hopelessness or kill out of their despair.  Both suicides and genocides express the void that life is not worth living unless there is hope.

       This truth that the human spirit needs the trilogy of faith, hope and love is evidenced by the film “Jakob the Liar.”

       Set within a Jewish ghetto in Poland in 1944, this holocaust fable centers around the life of Jakob Heym (Robin Williams)  Full of despair and grieving the loss of his beloved wife, Jacob has also lost his faith.  He neither worships God nor observes the practices of his Jewish faith.

       Though we might at first blame director Peter Kassovitz or author Jurek Becker for the absence of a mature rabbi within the film to lead the people into both faith and hope, this fable is perhaps nearer to the truth.  In Nazi occupied Poland, one of the first actions of the evil regime was to remove and kill religious leaders, both Jewish and Christian.  Without the moral presence of persons of faith, the hope of the people was shattered and their spirits broken.

       Thus, in the week before Jacob becomes a reluctant prophet, three Jewish adults had taken their own lives.  But something unusual happens.

       Sitting by the wall erected to isolate the Jewish ghetto from the surrounding city, Jakob is starving for news from the outside world.  What is happening with the war?  Are the Russians, Americans or British coming to free them, or will there be no end to their torment?

       When a sheet of a newspaper drifts on the wind over his head, Jakob becomes so consumed with his desire to find out what is happening that he doesn’t realize the paper has led him into danger.   Through a set of circumstances only a fable can create, Jakob is forced into Nazi headquarters and hears a radio announcement that the Russian army is only 400 kilometers away.  This hope lifts his spirit.

       But when Jakob attempts to share his hope with his despairing neighbors, his news produces an unexpected result:  they believe him to have a radio, an act punishable by death. 

       No matter what Jakob says, their need to have hope compels them to force upon him the role of prophet and “giver of hope.”  Though their faith had been shattered, they begin to have faith in the lies Jakob tells.

       This is where our fable begins to spin its magic.  The suicides cease.  The community quickens.  The resistance is strengthened.  And Jakob becomes their leader.

       The belief that the Russian army is closing in on their enemies transforms their lives such that they begin to have hopes and dreams once more.

       This is seen most clearly in the life of Mischa (Liev Schreiber).  When Mischa hears Jakob's report of the Russian liberators, he goes to his fiance’s home and asks for her hand in marriage.  Confronted by her cynical father that marriage requires hope for a future, he then tells the family that Jakob has given him such hope. 

       Inevitably, the transformation within the spirits of the Jewish people comes to the Gestapo’s attention, and the rumor of a radio forces Jakob to surrender himself to save the lives of his people.  This messianic act of self-less love would have been unlikely had Jacob not had hope and faith that his people had a future.

       That is the power of faith.  Though the Nazis had removed the rabbis and their faithful pastoral care, faith still found its way into their evil stockade.   Though Jakob was tortured, beaten and taken before the people to deny his hope, Jakob was willing to sacrifice his own life so that his people might keep their hope.  In the end Jakob knew faith, hope and love and died with the contented smile and the liberation spirit, a freedom even Nazi bullets cannot end.

       This is perhaps the most powerful moment of the film.  When Jakob tells the end of his tale, he gives two possible conclusions: one which lacks the hope his sacrificial act expects and the other a surreal fulfillment of his fantasies.

       “Jakob the Liar” is a parable of life in which ultimate despair is answered by a hope that unexpectedly invades its darkness.  It is a message as old as the first Jacob of Biblical times and as timely today as it has ever been.

      

(773 words)

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