Life
A Small Light TV review: A new perspective on the horror of the Shoah
New drama manages to centralise the tragedy of the Frank family but from an exterior perspective
May 12, 2023 09:56
New drama manages to centralise the tragedy of the Frank family but from an exterior perspective
May 12, 2023 09:56 To review work pertaining to the Holocaust, is to be somewhat conflicted. I mean really, what am going to do, give something a bad review?
Sure, there may be some frustration that so much of the output about Jews concerns those events, but it’s overwhelmed by the sense of gratitude that they’re being explored, remembered and that they can enlighten.
There are exceptions though, for example with something like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, where it feels like the Jewish experience of what happened is relegated to background fodder to tell a story.
Bel Powley (Disney)
What makes A Small Light so special then, and important, is that it manages to both centralise the tragedy inflicted on European Jewry, via arguably the Shoah’s most well-known family, the Franks, but from an exterior perspective.
By seeing the events unfold through the eyes of Miep Gies, who was Otto Frank’s secretary, there’s a distance that gives us space to experience the madness and inhumanity in a different way, while also placing an emphasis on the question: if we saw these things occurring to others, what would we do?
Through the eight-episode mini-series, as Disney+ releases them in two-episode chunks, we follow Miep as she argues with her foster parents about her partying and lack of direction, as she gets her first job, as she meets a man and marries, and as her boss asks her a question:“Can you help us?”
Bel Powley as Miep Gies and Eleanor Tomlinson as Miep’s friend
