Primo Levi's Journey

Ferrario, along with his camera crew, retraces the journey of celebrated author (of ‘If This is a Man’ and others) and Auschwitz survivor Levi, from the liberation of the camp in January 1945 to his arrival in his native Turin that August. It’s a beguiling whistle stop tour, with Ferrario interviewing local people to provide a series of snap-shots of the post-communist ‘East’, contextualised sometimes with archive footage, and contrasted with readings from Levi’s description of that arduous and tiring journey though Poland, Russia, Moldavia, Romania and finally Austria. As such, it’s a bit of a mess, falling between two stools: reenactmernt and reappraisal. But it has its moving and interesting moments all the same.