Immortalised as one of the most scintillating and uplifting Christmas songs, 'Carol of the Bells' adapted from a popular and loved Ukrainian folk melody, came to represent the spirit of brotherhood and unity all over the world. The peaceful and neighbourly existence of three families, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish, sharing a large house, musical evenings and merriment in the city of Stanislaviv in the years preceding and post war, is shattered. First in the Soviet occupation and the persecution of the Polish family, then, by the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and the decimation of the Jewish family. Sacrificing their lives the Ukrainian family manage to save their neighbours' children and their own daughter. Death and loss come to these families, but the healing power and joy , and a promise that the Future Will Not be Cancelled which "Carol of the Bells' evokes will be everlasting.
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1 USER REVIEW
Peter McGinn
3/3/2023
6 / 10
If you are looking for a holiday offering that bucks the trend, in that it is nearly unrelentingly depressing, this is the film for you. Ladies, bring your tissues and guys, pick up your phones so you can distract yourself from the bleak and dark story arc.
It is perhaps supremely ironic that such a positive and uplifting holiday song is deployed to highlight such a heart-achingly somber history, sort of like if they placed Percy Faith’s charming and spirited version of We Need a Little Christmas to soundtrack a film about a holiday coal mine tragedy.
Mind you, I am sure the story is realistic in its depiction of a Nazi and Russia induced tragedy following these families leading up to and during World War II. It is well done and all the rest, but boy am I glad I watched this movie long after the holiday season ended, rather than, say, in between It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf.
The story makes it all the more bewildering that so many people seem to be yearning towards living in autocracies. Perhaps they can’t see the entire story arc of the Nazis, but rather only the initial period when the trains ran on time and the authorities hated the same people they hated. Watch the movie, people, if it isn’t already too late to do so with an open and curious mind.
