The Island on Bird Street (1997)

With the Nazis having reduced Warsaw to little more than rubble, the young “Alex” (Jordan Kiziuk) is separated from his family, who have been sent to a concentration camp, and is now forced to scavenge as best he can amongst the ruins. Fortunately, this is a resourceful young lad who quickly learns his way around the ghetto using the sewers and the attics to keep himself safe. That’s easier said than done as the water supply has been turned off and food is extremely scarce. There are still people in the city but with plenty prepared to turn him in for an apple or a loaf of bread, he has to be very wary of whom he can trust. His encounter with fellow refugees “Freddy” (Lee Ross) and “Henyrk” (Simon Gregor) alerts him to a way out of their squalid environment into safer parts but he still hopes for a reunion with his dad “Stefan” (Patrick Bergin) and for that to happen, however unlikely, he must risk remaining in a Jewish quarter that is being slowly demolished by the invaders. It’s a lot of responsibility for this young lad who really only has himself and his pet mouse “Snow” against perils around every corner, and Kiziuk holds that role together engagingly well. This film is also quite interesting in that it tells us the story from that child’s perspective which offers quite an affecting way to demonstrate both the brutishness of the soldiers and their indiscriminate thuggery as neither age nor sex made the slightest difference to the treatment they received. The production takes us deep into the infrastructure of “Ptasia Street” and into the psychology of both this boy and those he encounters as he must live his life by his guile and with some occasional goodwill, and though the brutality isn’t as graphic as in many similar stories, it is just as impactful. It’s quite compelling to watch and his choice of book - “Robinson Crusoe” rather sums the whole thing up.