Jacob the Liar

Enduring drudgery and starvation is not as bad as being exposed to cruel and arbitrary rule and humiliation, without the least chance, day after day, of a moment of privacy. War is raging and Jakob Heym lives in a Polish ghetto. Under such conditions it is enough to be delayed outside after the curfew: the searchlights stop him dead in his tracks. But this time they’re rather lenient at the police station. While there, Jakob overhears a radio broadcast announcing the unstoppable approach of the Soviet army. This little man, with his careworn face and terrified look, is no hero, yet the radio broadcast has given him an idea: he himself will pretend to have a carefully hidden radio. In this way Jakob will be able to regularly inform others of the war’s approaching end. It is an extremely dangerous idea, especially for him, but Jakob doesn’t renounce his plan because he knows that those around him need hope to survive. And so every day he passes on “fresh news” to a trio of friends: young Mischa whose parents have just been transported east, Herschel whose wife has been shot, and Kowalski, the barber whose wonderful shop Jakob used to frequent before the war. The fabricated news of their impending deliverance is passed round by word of mouth, and it truly offers lifesaving encouragement. At times Jakob feels waves of fear wash over him, but the eager faces around him prevent him from abandoning the game. Even when, on the transport train, he tells little Linda a fairy tale, which he recently heard on his radio…. Nominated for an Oscar, the film is dominated by Vlastimil Brodskŕęs a top-notch performance, honoured at the Berlinale with a Silver Bear.