Bau, Artist at War

Rated PG-13 • Theaters

Bau, Artist at War, a new Holocaust-themed film based on Joseph Bau’s autobiography Dear God, Have You Ever Gone Hungry?, remembers an inspiring individual but suffers from some production missteps.

The film opens in 1971 in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a prosecutor (Josh Zuckerman) trying to convince Bau (Emile Hirsch) to testify in court against former Nazi concentration camp guard Franz Gruen (Yan Tual). As Bau’s memories sink back to war-torn 1943 Poland, the film fades from rich colors into black and white—one example of the film’s chromatic flair. Other cinematic touches, such as (simulated) hand-drawn images that open different scenes, also pay homage to Bau, a talented artist later regarded as the “Walt Disney of Israel.”

Bau makes himself invaluable to the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp, where he is imprisoned, by producing maps, signage, and Nazi propaganda posters. On the sly, Bau uses the art supplies to craft false identification cards for the Resistance.

Bau, Artist at War is also a love story about an optimist who can find humor in just about anything. With funny quips and comical drawings, Bau boosts his fellow prisoners’ spirits and woos Rebecca (Inbar Lavi), the woman he marries in Plaszow. (The end credits note that a scene in Schindler’s List memorializes their wedding.)

But multiple characters’ frequent lightheartedness seems out of place. The film doesn’t handle the emotional tension as masterfully as Life Is Beautiful did. The father character in the 1999 Best Foreign Language Oscar winner performs silly acts to shield his young son from the horrors inside a concentration camp, but his antics only heighten viewers’ dread and grief. For sure, disturbing beatings and killings, some partially obscured, occur in Bau—and contribute to the film’s rating, as do a few expletives and brief nudity. The problem is that excessive casual dialogue and some costuming oversights detract from the film’s gravity.

For example, the concentration-camp hardships don’t appear to take a physical toll on the (surviving) prisoners: The characters look well-fed and maintain nicely kept hairstyles for two years. They also move around the compound and chat with more nonchalance than you’d expect from people continually subject to guards’ murderous whims. And when Hirsch is playing 1970s Bau, his white-haired wig only makes his brown mustache and eyebrows stick out more. It’s a small costuming gaffe, perhaps, but another production miscue that undermines the film’s solemnity.

The courtroom finale was perplexing, too. The dialogue can’t possibly be the historical exchange, but I couldn’t find the transcript online to prove Bau, a witness, didn’t actually goad Gruen the defendant into admitting guilt with no objection from judge or attorneys.

A better starting point for learning about Joseph Bau might be his autobiography. (By the way, “Yes, and worse” is the answer to the titular query.)