Deschutes Public Library

The Last Happy Day - An Essay on the Destructive Power of War

eng

videorecording

The Last Happy Day - An Essay on the Destructive Power of War

956907462

Originally produced by Canyon Cinema Foundation in 2009

39

A portrait of a doctor who saw the worst of society and rn. The Last Happy Day is an experimental documentary portrait of Sandor (Alexander) Lenard, a Hungarian medical doctor and a distant cousin of filmmaker Lynne Sachs. In 1938 Lenard, a writer with a Jewish background, fled the Nazis to a safe haven in Rome. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army Graves Registration Service hired Lenard to reconstruct the bones -- small and large -- of dead American soldiers.. Eventually he found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of́ ђجWinnie the Poóhђح into Latin, an eccentric task that catapulted him to brief world-wide fame. Sachs' essay film uses personal letters, abstracted war imagery, home movies, interviews, and a children's performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war..́ ђجA fascinating, unconventional approach to a Holocaust-related story ... a frequently charming work that makes no effort to disguise an underlying melancholý.ђح George Robinson, The Jewish Week.́ ђجFilmmaker Lynne Sachs has invented a new form of poetic Documentary, melding the visual lyricism of personal avant-garde cinema with the investigative rigor of historical documentary. Her latest film,́ ђبThe Last Happy Daýђة is visually breathtaking and skillfully layered as it moves between past and present, between continents and across the generations of her own family. Sachs movingly explores the sorrows of a family member lost in the dislocations of World War 2, and the hope of a new generation discovering the richness of their family's past́.ђح - Jeffrey Skoller, Film and Media Dept., UC Berkeley. Premiere: New York Film Festival, 2009. Broadcast: Hungarian Public Television, Spring 2010.. Selected Screenings and Honors: Indiewire.Com: Nominated One of the Best́ ђجUndistributed Filmśђح of 2009; Directoŕђةs Choice Award, Black Maria Film Festival 2010

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