Agnieszka Holland's bluntly realistic Holocaust drama stands apart from other attempts to film unfilmable events by painting a pitch-black portrait of its heroes as well as its villains.
Based on a true story, this tough-but-forceful tale of human endurance follows Jewish families who hid from the Nazis in the sewers beneath the streets of the Polish- Ukrainian city of Lvov.
With refugees comprising con men, wheeler-dealers and adulterers, all reluctantly helped by anti-Semitic burglar Robert Wieckiewicz, who’s only in it for the money, the film never hides its uncomfortable truths in the shadows.
