Based on the novel “The Dark Room’ by Rachel Seiffer, “Lore” (2012) is a German-British-Australian drama set at the end of World War II, as the Nazi regime crumbles and Allied forces swarm Germany.
As the story begins, an S.S. officer and his wife abandon their five young children as the threat of capture looms upon them. With instructions to find their way to their grandmother’s home in Northern Germany, the group of five sets off on foot, with the oldest daughter, Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), forced to lead the distressed quintet.
“Lore” is a tense story of survival that follows the forsaken group along a painstaking trek through newly occupied lands, encountering Germans both helpful and dismissive, before ultimately coming under the unlikely protection of a young Jewish man named Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina).
Shot in lush, intimate detail by Adam Arkapaw, “Lore” is an utterly harrowing and starkly unsettling depiction of the resilience of the human spirit under the most distressing of circumstances. A stunning accomplishment for Australian director Cate Shortland not to be missed.
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