The Murdered Theater (2019)

Directed by: Frans Weisz | 57 minutes | documentary

There is a great need for lovingly made, sensitive documentaries. For example, about the small history of Jewish communities in ravaged Europe. Frans Weisz has the potential, the experience and carries it out meaningfully in ‘The Murdered Theatre’, a 57-minute documentary about Goset, the Jewish State Chamber Theater in Moscow, a flourishing stage in the communist utopia in the interwar period and the Second World War. (1921-1948).

The image archive is impressive, and the narrative style inspiring. A voice-over on screen, as if it were an episode of Het Klokhuis, is less effective. Weisz pumps his enthusiasm through the eyeballs of the viewer, with a young guy who looks like Michiel Huisman and sympathizes with the images and the Wagnerian background music, as if the viewer cannot do that themselves. That audience does appreciate the film, by the way, as number ten of the favorites on the most recent edition of Film by The Sea.

It is not necessary, however, as the base material and visual processing are interesting enough. Storytelling is a craft that should be exercised with restraint when it comes to history. Weisz is an active filmmaker; last year he presented ‘Life is vurrukkeluk’, based on the novel by Remco Campert. In ‘The Murdered Theatre’, Weisz has created a narrator who overacts to convey Grandfather’s enthusiasm.

But hey, that’s part of the form. The viewer is offered the history of an impressive Jewish community in Moscow, an underexposed aspect of European history, vividly portrayed here. The enthralling pace makes this venture to be enjoyed, if perhaps better said: to be taken by surprise, as if ‘The Murdered Theatre’ were an episode of the Polygoon news for an ignorant audience. And ‘what can you do with hope if there is no theatre?’