My Mother's Courage . The Boston Phoenix . 11-24-97

My Mother's Courage

DIRECTED BY: Michael Verhoeven

REVIEWED: 11-24-97

Based on the true experience of playwright George Tabori's mother, German director Michael Verhoeven's My Mother's Courage tells the story of a middle-aged woman's strange and haunting encounter with Nazis. The scene is a relatively cheery 1944 Budapest, where the Nazi deportation of Jews was just beginning. Returning home from errands, Elsa (played by Irish actress Pauline Collins) is seized by two old, bumbling Hungarian policemen. After she's turned over to the Nazis and placed on a crowded train for deportation, the absurdity is presented no longer as slapstick but as horror.

Verhoeven, who also directed the Oscar-nominated The Nasty Girl, has been hailed for his ability to incorporate elements of compassion and humor into a horrific Holocaust tale. But when you consider that Germany had already occupied Hungary, Jews were wearing stars on their chest, and Elsa's husband was locked away in prison, some of the initial lightheartedness seems historically misplaced. Nonetheless, My Mother's Courage does grow into a chilling story of an all-too trusting woman trying to understand human evil. Certainly, the random, almost flippant, manner in which an SS commandant eventually frees Elsa while sending others off to their deaths makes this task impossible for anyone -- including the 80-year-old Tabori, who appears throughout as an invisible observer -- to comprehend.

--Mark Bazer

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