Belle (2013) – PICK
Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe (1991) – PICK

 

Among new home-video releases this month are a pair of worthwhile works celebrating real historical figures — one with a greater basis in history than the other. The more historically founded film — and a must-see for Catholic cinephiles — is Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe, new on DVD from Ignatius Press.

From Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi (who also directed From a Far Country, somewhat misleadingly billed as a biography of Karol Wojtyla), Life for Life is a remarkable exploration of the meaning of the life and death of the great “martyr of Auschwitz,” who volunteered to die to save one of 10 fellow prisoners selected at random for execution.

Rather than depicting the saint’s heroic sacrifice directly (which can actually be seen in From a Far Country), Life for Life approaches its subject obliquely, from several perspectives: a fellow prisoner who saw Kolbe from a distance, Kolbe’s fellow Franciscans trying to piece together what happened after the fact, and, above all, one of two prisoners most directly implicated in Kolbe’s death: the man whose escape condemned those 10 men to die. (The prisoner whose life Kolbe saved is depicted only briefly.)

Life for Life is in Polish, with English and Spanish subtitles. It comes with a full-color, 16-page companion booklet, the main essay of which I wrote (I have a lot more to say about this film than I can include here!). It also includes other essays, a timeline of Kolbe’s life and suggested discussion questions.

Then there’s Belle, a fictional look at the relationship between Dido Elizabeth Belle (English actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw) — the mixed-race daughter of a British naval officer and his slave mistress — and her great-uncle William Murray (Tom Wilkinson), first earl of Mansfield, who raised Belle as a free gentlewoman alongside his daughter Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) in 18th-century Hampton, London.

As lord chief justice of England and Wales, the earl of Mansfield rendered important anti-slavery verdicts — in part, the film suggests, because of his relationship with Belle. Venturing into Jane Austen territory, the film also focuses on Belle’s and Elizabeth’s relationships with prospective suitors and the different forms of privilege each of the women is afforded. It’s intelligently written, moving and sufficiently uplifting to be worth seeing, in spite of its significant liberties with history.

Caveat Spectator: Belle: Slavery theme and depictions of racism; some innuendo; very brief sexual menace and groping; references to the mass murder of slaves; mild language. Teens and up. Life for Life: Depictions of work-camp forced labor and the prolonged execution of 10 men by starvation and lethal injection. Teens and up.