CinemaSerf

Born in Poland in 1923, Joe grew up with his parents and siblings in a musical household where he played the violin and was happy until the Nazis invaded. Worried for their safety, his parents split up and he, aged just seventeen, and his father headed for the Soviet section from where he was sent to Siberia for the duration. Returning and then making his way to New York after the war, he acquired a violin which over the years gave him much pleasure. Now, though, in his nineties and rarely playing he felt it time to pass it on. Locally, there’s a drive to collect unwanted musical instruments that can be passed on to aspiring young musicians in the city, so he donates. Conscious of the provenance of his violin, the charity doing the distributing find a home for it in a girls school in the Bronx. Apparently this is the most under-privileged district in the whole country, so the fact that a school recruits the children of immigrants and teaches them all the violin - regardless of their age, is quite a remarkable achievement. The remainder of the film follows a young girl as she learns to master his violin and peppered with a few stories of his life, we build to a performance that demonstrates Brianna is no slouch when it comes to playing. Though I don’t suppose he was technically an Holocaust survivor, the violin certainly was and the combination of their story and her skills deliver quite a powerful message about the healing powers of music and of it’s ability to act as a leveller across a disparate society where opportunities can be scarce. It offers up a hopeful sense of continuity and tugs a little, though not too much, at the heart-strings too.