I’ve never read The Diary of Anne Frank. Somehow, it didn’t make my 8th grade reading list. Nor do I remember being required to read it in high school, although it’s entirely possible that I may have blown off reading Anne Frank to moon over some boy. So, like Catcher in the Rye and On the Road, it has remained one of those books I keep saying I’ll read but never do, probably because, at 46, it seems the time for me to have done so has long passed.
On one level, the BBC and Masterpiece’s Anne Frank is clearly intended for an audience much younger than I, a new generation of viewers who want a fresh approach to the story. Young audiences will certainly identify with this Anne Frank, played brilliantly by the radiant Ellie Kendrick. They’ll recognize in her their own youthful restlessness and anger, their own lust, their own ardent desire to shape an identity for themselves. And, given the series’ deliberate downplaying of historical specifics, they may see her story as representative of countless other young men and women—whether in the past, or right now, in Iraq or Afghanistan—whose lives have been brutally snuffed by war.
But the real marvel of this adaptation is how it allows viewers of all ages to find sources of identification. Even as it keeps its attention on Anne,
the series manages to stayed tuned to the feelings of the eight people who shared an attic with her for two years. In one riveting scene, a petulant Anne provokes a fight with Mrs. Frank, claiming that she and her sister will not make the “same stupid mistakes” made by her mother’s generation. “We’ll grow up and have careers, we’ll lead interesting lives,” she says. All the while, the camera remains on the mother’s painstricken face. And we know that her pain stems not from hurt feelings but from fear that the words of her daughter will never come true.
The film also devotes a surprising amount of time to Albert Dussel, the fussy, fifty-year-old dentist who shares a room with Anne. Having left his fiancée, Lotte, behind--a fiancée much younger than he--he appears to be so desperately in love that he can’t bear the separation. He writes letters to Lotte constantly, despite the group’s general agreement not to make any contact with the outside world. In one of several scenes, we see Dussel weeping inconsolably. And we’re left to wonder what the true source of his weeping may be. Is it love? loneliness? Or is it panic, a wholly reasonable fear that his beloved might grow tired of waiting and abandon him for another, younger man?
These scenes remind us that those two years in captivity contained other stories besides Anne’s. Like all good adaptations, then, Masterpiece's and the BBC's new version of The Diary of Anne Frank invites us to think beyond the borders of both its source material and its own interpretation of that material. And, it makes me want to read the book. Even now, especially now, at 46.
It says something for the adaptation that of the eight of us, at least six (including me) were visibly crying and sniffling at the end. I had to read The Diary of Anne Frank in high school, and I didn't much like her, which made me feel like a horrible person.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it’s the vantage point of being 23 rather than 14, but this adaptation made me feel much more for Anne, despite clearly seeing her selfishness and foibles. Viewing this adaptation, I wonder how much of my disconnect before was that I am much more like (okay, completely like) her older sister Margo, the one who, as she finally confronts Anne, “Has to be the good one, because someone has to be the peacemaker” (paraphrased).
One of the strengths of this version is that it is filled with everyday, poignant moments, but they are invariably interrupted by the terror surrounding the little enclave. Anne’s narration is never quite finished when the sounds of bombing begin; scenes are cut off by the abrupt horrors that shakes the annex. This timing adds much to the feeling of being off-balance. Humans, whether living through stress or merely watching it, can’t take prolonged periods of intensity, invariably we relax, or shut off, or something. What this film captures so well is how fear catches up with us, how we push it away but it resurfaces during moments we are trying to live.
The only other comment I have is that, when I looked it up on imbd.com, it’s listed as a five-episode miniseries that’s 150 minutes long. That explains some of the fadeouts—it felt like it had been serialized. Now I’m wondering what they cut to get it to fit into two hours.
One of my favorite scenes was the one in which Mr. Dussel first moves in to his bedroom in the attic. The awkwardness shared by both roommates was palpable as the grown man prepared for bed in front of Anne's averted gaze. I was particularly moved when he began chanting his prayers--a momentary scene that reminds us, however briefly, of the weighty questions of religious faith which are otherwise left unspoken in this adaptation.
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