The Righteous Road Trip (dir. Vanessa Roth), World Premiere at DWF: LA
This film takes us along on a journey that is hard, hopeful, and life-affirming.
When the road trip begins, we ride along in a car through a snow-covered village on a clear day. We are with the narrator, Jonny Daniels, his fluffy dog tucked in beside us. As a viewer, I sense that this will be a comfortable story until a poignant piano riff dances in, a cue that this may not be a light subject. So I’m primed for the story that follows because the opening foretells both tones in The Righteous Road Trip. The world premiere of this short documentary takes place at Dances With Films: LA on June 22 at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.
The film follows British-Israeli humanitarian Jonny Daniels over a nearly 2,000-mile winter road trip across Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, visiting the last living non-Jewish people who secretly saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. There are only about 65 of them left, most in their 90s and 100s. They’ve been honored by Israel as “The Righteous Among the Nations.” Director Vanessa Roth was struck by how ordinary these heroes now seem. “You don’t know the story of your neighbor
Driving, Jonny comments on the serene setting then adds, “But as I drive through this beautiful landscape today, it’s hard to imagine the horrors that took place here between 1939 and 1945.” At which point the footage turns to black and white, then into archival footage of images of the same area at the time of the Holocaust. They are bleak and jarring, and we stay there just long enough to feel the gravity of the life-risking measures the families took.
At one point, on his way to a recipient, Jonny has to abandon his van and driver because the mountain road, buried under snow from a fierce storm, has become too treacherous for the vehicle. Jonny secures his bulky gift box onto a plastic sled, then musters his goodwill and struggles to pull it up the hill to his destination. Tyson the dog is left safely in the warm van.
The items he brings, Jonny tells us, are traditional holiday baked goods, preserved delicacies, holiday ornaments, and heavy tins and items an older person would need throughout the winter but may struggle to carry.
The Righteous one he is delivering to in this segment is Jozef, who, now 93, recounts that, at twelve years old, he and his family hid fourteen people and a baby in their beet cellar for over two years. The hiding space measured 4 meters by 2 meters.
These people are not brimming with their tales; they have to be prompted and questioned. I watch and see humility, an attitude of “anyone would do it.” But would we? Would I? The point is, they did. When I asked Roth about it, she said the rescuers resist the word hero entirely: “If we ask them why did you do what you did, they all, every single one of them just said, ‘Because it was the right thing to do.'” So indeed we need to prompt them to tell us. Tell us so we are humbled and can be championed to act against cruelty ourselves.
Roth says that is the film’s real question. “We all think, oh, I would do that. I would do whatever it takes if someone’s in trouble. But would you really? How far would you go for another person, whether it’s a friend, a neighbor, and most of all, a stranger?”
I appreciate the tone of Roth’s work here. Light yet full of gravitas. Jonny’s pointedly gaudy holiday sweaters show his humor and pull at ours, and his upbeat attitude reminds us this is a merry act. The smudgy, pencil-sketch-like graphics that help reenact scenes from the past with the voice-over of a child to represent the young people who are now the elders telling us are effective. Roth told me the choice was deliberate: the children voice the elders in the animated scenes “because they’re representing the age that these people were when they saved others.” The pacing feels right, and Jonny’s dog Tyson, as well as Jonny’s attitude, brings levity to this reflection on a dark time.
The film moved me. I’m inspired to make a difference when I get out of my viewing seat. And walking away, now holding a part of history, I already do feel different because I’ve received the message directly from the hero who created it.
The Righteous Road Trip. Documentary short, 40 min. A DWF: LA world premiere (Mon, June 22, 4:00 PM, TCL Chinese Theatres). Director/Writer/Producer: Vanessa Roth. Producers: Jonny Daniels, Stephen D. Smith, Justin Cohen. With: Jonny Daniels, Tyson. Rating / Verdict: ★★★★
