New Holocaust film: Jewish inmate makes up a language to survive

• Author: CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
• Date: 17 January 2021
• Published date: 17 January 2021

One problem: The inmate doesn't speak Farsi. Instead he comes up with his own language and teaches it to his captor, trying not to raise suspicions.

If that sounds like a comedy of errors, it's no accident. Persian Lessons is based on a short story by the screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase, who specializes in tragicomedies. Der Spiegel describes Kohlhaase as a master of "dialogue jokes."

But Persian Lessons is a somber thriller about surviving while obtaining justice against the odds. And the film sets itself apart from others in its genre in how it puts a deeply human face not only on the victims but on the perpetrators as well.

Belarus submitted the movie for Oscar competition because it was filmed there, but it was disqualified from competition because it's not actually about that country. Cohen Media Group acquired the North American rights to Persian Lessons, but has yet to begin distributing the film there.

The film, which is mostly in German (and fake Farsi), begins in a truck packed with Jewish men being driven to an execution site. One man offers Gilles, a young Belgian Jew, an expensive-looking book in Persian in exchange for Gilles's sandwich. Shortly after the transaction is made, the men are taken to the place of execution. With nothing to lose, Gilles tells the Nazi soldiers he is in fact Persian, not Jewish, and presents the book as proof.

He can hardly believe his luck when the soldiers decide to keep him alive because their commander is looking for a Farsi speaker.

But Gilles's troubles are only beginning. Sleep-deprived, malnourished and terrified, he must find a way to consistently teach a nonexistent language to a man who would kill him instantly if he slips up.

Gilles comes up with a code system using the only reliable foreign vocabulary at his disposal: the names of the inmates around him.

To each inmate, he assigns a foreign-sounding mash-up of their first and last names. To each mash-up he assigns a word that captures something about the personality or appearance of the inmate. Then he teaches that word to the officer, who ends up unwittingly memorizing his victims' names.

Much of the critically acclaimed film is devoted to the development of Gilles's scheme. But as it progresses, the film distinguishes itself from other Holocaust films in its treatment of the daily lives of the Nazi soldiers running the camp: the romance between female and male guards, the rivalry and politics between the officers, and how Nazism divided their own...