Jacoba

This is an absorbing report from the backwaters of history, and an ode to decency. Joram Ten Brink's documentary recounts the intertwined destinies of two provincial families in nazi-occupied Holland during the war. They are the Ten Brinks, Jews established in the area for some 250 years, and the Omvlees, who were millers. Though Jacoba Omvlee, the miller's widow, has been no particular friend of the Ten Brinks, she risked her life and that of her family to hide the four Ten Brinks for more than two years in a room of a house next to the mill. Jacoba and her eight children kept their dangerous secret with an unself-conscious decency bordering on the heroic. The director, who is the son of the youngest Ten Brink, and who was bom and raised in Israel, has told this story with sympathy and restraint. The only dramatic recreations involve the Ten Brinks' flight to Jacoba's house. (Variety, 18.1.89)