I admit to not knowing one damn thing about this writer named Primo Levi – all the more reason to be curious about this week’s release of Primo Levi's Journey – a Cinema Guild release.
Narrated by Chris Cooper, this doc’s starting point begins in the winter of 1945, Primo Levi, one the century’s greatest writers (“If This Is A Man”), was liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. With the war still underway, he embarked on a thousand-mile journey to his home in Turin, Italy – a strange and beguiling odyssey memorialized in his book, “The Truce.” Sixty years later, director Davide Ferrario set out to follow in Levi’s footsteps. Retracing his historic trip through Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, PRIMO LEVI’S JOURNEY weaves a path through a modern Europe that has both changed and remained eerily the same – from democratic rallies in the East to neo-Nazi demonstrations in the West. Incorporating archival footage of Levi with Soviet propaganda newsreels, and injecting the film with a wry sense of humor, Ferrario pays homage to one of the most important post-war writers (2007 is the 20th anniversary of Levi’s death) while investigating the meaning of memory.
