Haley Joel Osmet (The Sixth Sense, Pay It Forward, Secondhand Lions) stars as a Jewish boy who is smuggled out of Krakow, Poland, sometime in 1942. He is taken to a farm in the Polish countryside where he poses as the nephew of a farmer. While there he experiences both love and hate from those around him.
Willem Dafoe (Spiderman) makes an almost cameo appearance as the Catholic parish priest who guides five village kids through catechism, working towards their first communion. There is no warmth or depth to this character; he is a cold and legalistic religious zealot.
This is one mixed-up and incoherent movie. At times it tries it seems to want to be a feel good movie, at other times it's unnerving... scratch that, it's downright disturbing. The more I think of it the more I come to the conclusion that this is life in general... mixed-up and disturbing but I personally don't want to sit through 98 minutes of sad scene after sad scene.
Be warned this movie is not for everyone as it contains scenes of violence, implied rape, murder, hate, and brutality involving children. There's also mention of bestiality, but the viewer is left unsure as to whether this is mentioned by kids who are joking or referring to an actual event.
Overall, the movie has been praised as being an authentic look at life in war torn Poland. After watching Edges of the Lord I did get to thinking how war doesn't just effect soldiers on the front lines, it also has life changing ripple effects on the surrounding community at large.
However, the movie is just too bizarre to be taken seriously. The catholic priest asks the children to study and "get inside" the minds of the the 12 disciples and one young boy asks of he can have Jesus? After being allowed, he sets out trying to become Jesus. He tries (unsuccessfully) to put nails through his hand, he wears a crown of thorns, he baptises the other children, he has the other children tie him to a tree (crucifix style) and eventually gives his life in a totally unnecessary and unexplained scene; he allows himself to be put on one of "the trains" that is transporting Jews to the infamous Nazi death-camps. I was left scratching my head as to why he did this? Maybe, after all he has seen he had totally lost it... that's as good an explanation as any!
There are brief moments that try to redeem this movie such as the scene where the priest is making the communion wafers and Osmet's character, Romek, picks up the "edges." After the priest explains that they are just the edges and not blessed so it's OK to eat them. "Are we blessed? Or are we just the edges?" he asks the priest, to which the priest replies, "We are all scraps and we are all blessed the same." Another good scene comes at the end of the movie the priest is serving the remaining children their first communion and when he gets to Romek and serves him a piece of the "edge" therefore allowing him to retain his Jewish identity.
However, this movie is not one I would recommend. As far as movies that deal with WW2, Jews and the holocaust I would highly recommend Schindler's List, Uprising, Anne Frank, The Devil's Arithmetic and the brilliant Life Is Beautiful. But Edges of the Lord is maybe too close to reality to be enjoyed and a little too bizarre to be taken seriously. We are given sad scene after sad scene, but they are never able to connect in a way that ever makes a clear point about anything.
By the end of the film, I was drained, not inspired or challenged. This film does not observe and comment on human depravity, but rather seems to give in to it. It's a hard film to forget, or to forgive. My rating 3/10. CSJ
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