The
Search is a Heartbreaking Must See
By
Kristin Battestella
In
1948’s The Search, GI
engineer Ralph Stevenson (Montgomery Clift) takes
in the displaced nine year old Karel (Ivan
Jandl) in post-war Berlin. When
unable to find the young Auschwitz survivor's family through the
Central Tracing Bureau, Steve goes through the lengthy paperwork to
have “Jim” return to America with him.
However, Karel's mother Hanna Malik (Jarmila Novotná)
is likewise going through the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration, spending months walking from camp to
camp searching for her son.
Every
time The Search is
on television, I say I won't tune in, for two hours later I am crying
from this inevitably sad yet heartwarming little piece from director
Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity).
Relief groups are corralling children, trying to find out who they
are and where they came from before the concentration camps, and this
rescued road will be difficult for children understandably still
afraid of vehicles collecting them to be gassed. I wouldn't blame
anyone for turning off The Search before
it really starts thanks to early Oliver
Twist style assembly
lines feeding starving kids as they recount their time as slave labor
sorting the clothes of the gassed by size and finding a relative's
clothes among them. The narration is also odd today – no voiceover
is really needed because the visuals are so strong – but the warm
female voice emphasizes this plight without requiring more children
to perform more dialogue in the various languages. Besides, their
pitiful little states are enough to make one wonder if all these tiny
kids are really survivors themselves. Military initials and group
acronyms invoke a systematic sense of order as back and forth
interviews and translations reveal important details, and the names
of the concentration camps standout regardless of the languages
spoken or other almost insurmountable communication barriers. The
flashback of the Malik family singing together may seem like a
backtrack breaking the emotion established, but it's critical to see
their pleasantness cut short by the dreaded knock on the door. The
family's split is also montaged somewhat quickly, however, a child
crying “Mommy!” is terrible enough. The
Search has scenes
with no English spoken, yet the viewer understands every youthful
fear happening. More fatal action crescendos speak for themselves,
and disturbing water scenery tops a wrenching first act before
introducing our mother's in media res
search. It's important to have an adult
breather from the child tough, but seemingly routine inquiries turn
into difficult regret to inform you bonding and tears as one woman
gives another mother the worse news she could possibly receive. The
audience has information the parallel double whammies do not – we
know both the boy and his mother are safe while each thinks the other
is dead. Cut my heart it out will hurt less!
Clean
cut all-American hero Montgomery Clift doesn't appear until a half
hour into The
Search, suave
in his uniform with a cool jeep and forthcoming passage home. After
feeding Karel on the street, Steve initially keeps the wild child at
arms length, frustrated over their trial and error communication and
wondering if the boy is holding out on simple yes or no answers.
However, Steve becomes
increasingly aware of what Karel must have experienced, and doesn't
tell the newly coined “Jim” the misinformation of his mother's
death. He's ordered to hand over the boy and Steve's ready to leave,
but he wonders what will happen to his charge if he goes. He doesn't
have the facts needed to adopt the boy yet goes through the process
nonetheless. Steve learns not to joke about procedures anymore, going
from nonchalant to angry at red tape, “You're so official you have
to go through channels just to open a door.” Sure, the metaphor of
this army engineer rebuilding destroyed bridges is obvious amid
Abraham Lincoln school lessons, a dated notion that America is tops,
and that learning English will get you anywhere in the world, but so
what. There are wonderful lighthearted moments between our found
bachelors, too, “Even in England they understand English...well,
sort of.” Steve cancels
his ticket home, willing to wait for another passage until Jim's
permits clears, but he has job commitments in US that can't be
postponed. The now sentimental Steve isn't ready to just leave Jim
behind at the relief camp with a promise they will see each other
again someday.
Devoutly Method Clift toured real camps, lived in barracks, and wore
fatigues, going overboard annoying his director with his own dialogue
rather than following the script. He is
the leading man of the picture yet not a star so bright he's above
telling the best tale, and it takes a great actor to accept being
secondary in a movie really about a little boy. Today's actor would
award bait chew such tour de force man pain, but Clift is
effortlessly natural at holding nothing back and believably
bittersweet as a sudden parent putting a child first regardless of
himself. This is the first of his four Oscar nominations, and only an
elite big name dozen have been so honored in their debut release. I
will tell anyone who listens to watch Montgomery Clift's seventeen
movies, but if starting here with The
Search does
not convince
you to see the rest of his films, nothing will.
The
Search does
not have a big ensemble with any other major names but opera star
Jarmila
Novotná
is perfectly cast as the heart wrenchingly relatable Mrs. Malik. A
hat, bag, umbrella, good shoes, and clean coat are all she needs to
walk in search of her son, and it's difficult to watch her suffer
when we know he is safe with what could be a good American
opportunity. Hanna doesn't want to disturb the church on a Sunday
with her inquiry, but she knows enough English to repeat the story of
who she is, where she is from, and which little boy she is seeking.
By time we meet her, she has already been searching for seven months,
following a lead to a dead end or striking out with another tidbit of
information and redirected as usual to the Central Tracing Bureau.
However, she is nothing without her child and won't give up hope. So
many match her son's description – names on a card, no picture to
show, and mistaken possibilities lead to her helping a scared Jewish
child hiding as an choir boy before silently resuming her quest.
Although months have passed, to the viewer Hanna's arrival at her
son's transition camp has cinematically just missed him. Reunions are
happening – even coincidental ones right on the street – but the
audience wants to see all these pieces put together onscreen. We're
angry for Mrs. Malik even when she remains relatively subdued and
patient, quiet and weary. She can't take much more of this journey
but this search for her son is the only thing carrying her. Clues to
be found by his little cap lead to more misinformation, even an
apparent confirmation that her Karel is dead, leading to her
breakdown and even an implied suicide attempt. She can give up her
quest – no one would blame her if she took the necessary and worthy
job of helping other children offered to her at UNNRA. Working to
stabilize other children and send them home could in fact be the
healing she needs. As a mother, however, Hanna holds out hope, taking
up her umbrella and continuing her eponymous duty whether it breaks
her or not.
Young
Ivan Jandl gives a darling little
performance in The Search,
innocent and raw with a distant stare as he repeatedly says “I
don’t know” – almost blissfully unaware what has happened to
him. Karel can't remember how to use a spoon and collapses onto a
long forgotten pillow. He doesn't understand his own language or know
his name but is terrified when identified to come forward by the
little hat on his head. Karel's embarrassed by the numbers on his arm
and tries to cover them with a ripped sleeve. Innocent encounters
trigger fearful memories, and he swims away from help before
resisting a soldier who would heal his blistered feet. Eventually the
renamed Jim understands he is able to open a gate, leave, or return
for care. He learns to say no to alcohol and yes to chocolate, and
it's simply glee to finally hear his voice in adorable little scenes
identifying basic items. He's a smart kid learning a new language and
soon befriends an American boy with no notion of differences between
them. The Search progresses
in its middle with more traditional home life scenes, school lessons,
and at the dinner table conversations – Jim doesn't always
understand it all, but he's happy to receive shoes as a surprise gift
and doesn't mind living in tiny attic apartment with Steve. After
all, they've both had far worse billets. Jim doesn't know what the
English word “mother” means when he hears it, but remembers what
happened to him when he sees another child comforted by his mother.
He goes from silent and broken to adamant and proactive wanting
answers about his family he may never find. Jim is not lost or
interested in America, but he has lost his mother and needs Steve's
help to find her. This is a stunning performance recognized with a
Special Juvenile Oscar traversing the emotional spectrum and then
some with total honesty and on camera purity: “I had a mother. I
know I had a mother. Where is she?”
The
austere black and white on location German filming and international
production for The
Search hits
home the wartime
broken and divided with an almost documentary feeling – a
re-enactment of something that really happened complete with a
disclaimer thanking the US Army for allowing filming in the
occupation zone. The raw footage of shelled buildings, crumbling
walls, ruinous stonework, dusty barely there roads, rubble piles,
fallen bridges, and concrete heaps to nowhere is a scenery study unto
itself. Up close shots of fences with blurred masses on either side
in and out of focus would stray into earlier surreal and German
expressionist designs, but they are unfortunately realistic frames,
and the mid-century technology is itself wartime outdated rather than
nostalgic with older phones and earlier typewriters. Pen and paper
are tough to come by, one can't find an envelope to mail a letter,
people have to wait months for a letter response, and old magazine
pictures are thumb-tacked to the wall to use as educational
flashcards amid slide rules and Iodine medicine. Zoom ins on
applications with crossed out boxes, question marks, and “unknown”
answers and typing a letter to the Central Tracing Bureau asking for
relatives of a nothing but a number put the situation in bold print.
Numerous languages including Czech, German, French, Polish, and
Hebrew songs aren't subtitled onscreen, either – adding
authenticity as we wait through onscreen translations, go-betweens,
or simply not knowing as pieces and tales of missing parents,
deceased family, and children who don't know who they are repeat from
one language to the next or not at all. The Warner Archive Collection
DVD itself has no subtitles and a fitting bare bones lacking. One one
hand, I wish there were retrospectives on Clift or the so close to
home filming atmosphere, yet I'm glad there are no companion features
to The
Search. Nothing
else needs to be said, no billboards, viral marketing campaigns, and
promo tours like today – this is simply a picture that was made to
speak for itself and amen.
Usually
when I’ve seen a movie a dozen times, I
can begin my notes with the basics before a critical eyed rewatch.
With The Search, however,
I found my immediate thoughts to be emotional memories. Though gut
wrenching with Holocaust history, orphan plots, and post-war
destruction that can still be sensitive subjects to many audiences,
it takes repeat viewings to pick up all the no such thing as
coincidence coincidences and stay the course religious undercurrents
in The Search with
both Christianity and Judaism used to
shelter those of a different belief and help one seek what they must
find. Despite somewhat dated or saccharin constructs, this Best Story
Oscar winner with nominees for Actor, Director, and Written
Screenplay amid other awards and praise should not be as obscure as
it is. Today's cinema is so stylish in its re-creation of the past
that it is often too false or afraid to be raw and can’t capture
the truth is seeks, but there is a small joy in unpolished pictures
made so close to the war that take you through the emotional ringer –
and The Search is
a necessary film as catharsis as great
cinema should be.
