If you get a chance to see this film, grab it!
I saw "Visas and Virtue" the week after it won the Academy Award for best live action short, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the time it ended. With good reason: In telling the story of the Japanese consul in Lithuania who, against the orders of his government and at great personal risk, continued to grant transit visas to Jews fleeing Hitler, the film makers touch several deep places; it is difficult to resist the emotional pull of the themes they explore.
Beautifully shot, mostly in black and white, the story is told both richly and economically. Crammed into about half an hour are such story threads as how the consul and his wife carefully arrange the interviews so that the rules are technically followed, how the stress of both the external crisis of war and refugees and the internal one of personal honor and loyalty and right action affects their family, and the desperation and gratitude of the people who are helped and who, unexpectedly, can help him.
It's a great shame that a short film like this won't be seen by the large audience it deserves.
I saw "Visas and Virtue" the week after it won the Academy Award for best live action short, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the time it ended. With good reason: In telling the story of the Japanese consul in Lithuania who, against the orders of his government and at great personal risk, continued to grant transit visas to Jews fleeing Hitler, the film makers touch several deep places; it is difficult to resist the emotional pull of the themes they explore.
Beautifully shot, mostly in black and white, the story is told both richly and economically. Crammed into about half an hour are such story threads as how the consul and his wife carefully arrange the interviews so that the rules are technically followed, how the stress of both the external crisis of war and refugees and the internal one of personal honor and loyalty and right action affects their family, and the desperation and gratitude of the people who are helped and who, unexpectedly, can help him.
It's a great shame that a short film like this won't be seen by the large audience it deserves.