A Call to Remember, is a BEAUTIFUL made-for-TV movie about the long-term effects of the Holocaust & its legacy on future generations.
I LOVE this Movie! I taped it off TV, but I've watched it so often, the tape is almost worn out! Literally! :)
So I really hope it comes on DVD very soon!
A Call to Remember, is a true story, that occurred to one of the movie's creators. It stars Joe Mantegna and Blythe Danner, as David (Mantegna) & Paula (Danner) Tobias, a Jewish couple living in the northwestern United States with their two sons, 18 year old Jacob (David Lascher) & 12-13 year old Benjamin (Kevin Zegers), during the late 1960's.
David and Paula Tobias are Holocaust survivors whose entire families (including Paula's first husband & two sons, & David's first wife & two sons) were murdered by the Nazis.
After the war, David and Paula met in a D.P.(Displaced Persons) Camp, and married - not so much out of love, but rather a fear of being all alone in the world, and the need for somebody in their lives. As in the words of Paula Tobias, "At that time people didn't think about love, it was better not to be alone."
At the movie's start, the Tobias family are living a relatively normal, typical upper middle-class Jewish-American life. They are busy planning their 13 year old son Ben's bar mitzvah, and though over two decades have passed since the Holocaust, many reminders of the trauma and ordeal they endured still remain, as vivid as ever.
For example, there is a scene where Jake and Ben accidentally discover $20,000 in cash stored in several mayonnaise jars, and hidden behind a secret wall in the basement. It's a clear reminder that even though it's the late 1960's and they're in America now, they are still in "basic survival instinct" mode - living in fear of another Holocaust, and the need to quickly flee.
Another obvious but understandable effect, is David and Paula's over-protectiveness, resulting in their kids, especially their elder son, feeling completely smothered and suffocated. As Jake complains bitterly about his mother to his girlfriend, Amy, "She breathes my air first, to make sure it's okay for me. Do you have any idea what that's like?" Also, the Vietnam War and its military draft is intricately woven into this storyline, with David & Paula's terror that their 18 year old son, Jake will be called up and forced to fight in the war. They're petrified at the thought of anything happening to their remaining children. So much so, that Mr. & Mrs. Tobias enlist the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Green (Joe Spano) to write a medical exemption letter to the draft board, which infuriates Jake, further reinforcing his feelings of being controlled by his parents.
Another facet of David and Paula's overprotectiveness, is a total inability to not only discuss their experiences during the war, but to share ANY aspect of their pasts or family history with their children. As Jake, remarks cynically to his brother, Ben, in regards to their father's family, "Don't expect him to tell you what happened. He won't even say what their names were."
Because of Mr. & Mrs. Tobias's reluctance to talk about their pasts, Jake and Ben are unable to fully understand and comprehend the depths of suffering that their mother and father have endured. As a result, the Tobias children, Jake, especially, minimize their parents pain, while exaggerating and overemphasizing the minor discomfort over the petty, insignificant trivialities in their own lives. Like in one scene, when Jake is arguing with his parents about moving in with friends, he says, "I'm drowning!" to which his mother scoffs, replying, "What do you know about drowning? Drowning is when you have nothing!"
So, all these tensions, and long-buried traumas that are just simmering beneath the surface, all come to a head when, out of the blue, Paula Tobias gets a phone call that her son Alec, who it was presumed had been killed during the war, was found alive and well in Poland. This surprising and unexpected call creates a whirlwind of emotions for the entire family from excitement, and joy to skepticism, jealousy, and worry.
Later, when they receive some very tragic news, the entire Tobias family are thrown into a tailspin, and for the first time in their lives they are forced to truly look inside themselves, and reassess everything they have ever known - their values, priorities, relationships with family, friends, and acquaintances, indeed their whole way of dealing with life in general.
In the aftermath of their cruel twist of fate, David and Paula come to realize that if they want to heal themselves and their children, and strengthen their bonds as a family, they must face all the memories that they have been running and hiding from since the war. They slowly accept that the only way for them to survive and move on with their lives is if they deal with the grief that they have postponed for over two decades, and finally mourn for all the deaths and losses that they suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
With this realization, and working to recover from the long-buried traumas of the past, the entire Tobias family are ultimately able to come together happily at the end to celebrate the much-anticipated rite of passage of son Ben's bar mitzvah.
Far from being a dark, and depressing film, this is a beautiful movie about life in general. It has happy moments, sad moments, good times, bad times. Although the theme of the movie is about the Holocaust, and there are sad parts, "A Call to Remember", is not a gloomy movie. It is a touching and poignant tale about the legacy of the Holocaust and its effects on future generations. A MUST SEE!!
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