“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” (2024) is the first definitive and comprehensive biographical documentary about the titular Holocaust survivor turned writer who wrote his most famous and first book, “Night,” which was originally titled “And the World Remained Silent.” The film begins in Sighet, Romania and covers Wiesel’s journey across Europe to the US. Writer and director Oren Rudavsky also includes the post humous effect that Wiesel had on his surviving family, students and the world.
If “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” has a flaw, it is assuming that its audience brings the necessary historical and cultural context to the film. Even Wiesel bemoaned how no one could truly understand the Holocaust if they did not experience it. In the film, an excerpt from Night read in the film says, “I see the world forgets. The German army has resurrected. World criminals walk in the streets.” The best way to address Wiesel’s concerns is to make a film that explicitly explains the underlying reason for the trajectory of Wiesel’s life instead of assuming that people will know it or be able to infer it from hearing about Wiesel’s life. Should it be a given? Yes, but we are in the worst timeline, which includes actual Nazis in the US tgus alleged reports that the US Coast Guard considered calling swastikas “potentially divisive.”
Here is a terse summary of the Holocaust. Please skip the next two paragraphs if you know the history. Many types of people, primarily Jewish people, who lived in any area that the German Nazis occupied, were stripped of all their rights, transported away from their homes, stripped of their property, separated from their families and killed either immediately or slowly through German Nazis and their collaborators forcing them to do often performative tasks under conditions that would ultimately kill the deported people. Unfortunately, this description should sound familiar, but in another context. This travesty occurred during World War II (“WWII”), but German forces prioritized these state sanctioned executions over winning the war and protecting non-Jewish German citizens. It should be a lesson or incentive to people who currently may wonder why they should have empathy if a problem does not seem to affect them.
After WWII ended, many people who survived the Holocaust understandably did not return home out of fear that their neighbors, who were often complicit, would try to kill them again, which happened, so they fled to other countries where the Allied forces, i.e. those who fought the Nazis, dominated. As a Jewish person, Wiesel lived this experience and ten years after the end of the WWII, dedicated his life to talking about these horrors so it would not happen again (spoiler alert: it did not work).
Even if you are not into Wiesel or know of his work, “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” gives a ground eye view of what it was like to live and survive then cultivate a life after all this trauma. Rudavsky uses archival film, home videos, and photograph montages to convey village life in Romania, the march to Auschwitz, life in Paris and the immigration to Ellis Island. Astonishingly there is a photo of Wiesel in a dormitory during his camp internment. Because Wiesel lived a public life, there are a lot of recorded interviews, some only audio but most included visuals. Rudavsky made it seem as if the documentary is autobiographical. It is authorized given the Wiesel’s family on screen participation in making the documentary.
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” also features interviews with Wiesel’s family members such as his sister, Hilda Wiesel Kudler; his nephew, Sydney Amir; his widow, Marion Wiesel; his son, Elisha; his daughter in law Lynn; and his grandchildren, Elijah and Nova. These interviews are probably the most riveting because there is no mystery regarding how they know him, so it is easier to focus on their insights. It is left unspoken whether Wiesel minded that his wife was not religious, and there are no explanations why Nova did not go with Elijah to visit their grandfather’s hometown.
When there is not footage available or the journey is covering Wiesel’s inner contemplative life, Rudavsky crafts “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire,” a mostly conventionally structured documentary in an unconventional way and collaborated with an animation department that Joel Orloff headed. The illustrations become more abstract depending on the turbulence of the emotions involved. Colors are used to convey more positive feelings. For example, in a dream that involves a blood-colored river, red is not used, but pastel colors because Wiesel is describing a dream where he is able to accomplish something that he could not do in real life, i.e. saving his father and other family members from the Holocaust. The colors are more monochromatic, specifically black and white, more charcoal and less pastel to depict how Wiesel is tormented and at an all-time nadir. If it seems instinctual and easy to take for granted, it means a lot of hard work went into the illustrations to seem organic and effortless.
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” includes audio only interviews with friends and others whose relationship with Wiesel is left unstated but will be theorized here. This creative choice could be to keep the focus on Wiesel, not other famous people. Some only contribute with vocals such as Ted Koppel, journalist and former ABC anchor of “Nightline;” Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, Wiesel’s former academic and personal assistant; Malcolm Thomson, an investment advisor and philanthropist who knew Wiesel through their mutual involvement with various philanthropic organizations; and Alan L. Berger, American professor of Judaic Studies and Holocaust Studies at the Florida Atlantic University, who was a close professional colleague and editor of essays about Wiesel. Documentaries will be watched long after the participants are no longer in the public eye so Koppel will just seem like a random person to future viewers, not a late-night icon. It would be interesting, bit not essential, to know if they were also interviewed in person, but the footage was not included or if they asked for privacy because they did not want to be harassed.
Others appear on screen such as his American Jewish friend, Ted Comet, who was a twenty-two years old volunteer counselor when he met Wiesel as an eighteen year old at a Jewish orphans home in Versailles, France; Judith Hemmending, the 1945 orphanage director; Elaine Housman, an artist and actor; Georges Borchardt, Wiesel’s literary agent; Dr. Romana Strochlitz Primus, a family friend and fellow Holocaust survivor; Moni Yakim, an Israeli theater who adapted Wiesel’s work in collaboration with Marion and faculty member of the Julliard School; Rabbi Leah Berkowitz, the family babysitter who cared for Elisha and incidentally works with the aforementioned Rabbi Perry Berkowitz in an intentional parallel to Miriam and Moses; Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg who cofounded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership with Wiesel; Annette Insdorf, a filmmaker who met Wiesel, a child of Holocaust survivors and co-producer of “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire;” Mark Podwal, illustrator of Wiesel’s books; and Dr. Suzanne Lentzch, Wiesel’s oncologist. Some of these scenes convey the visual context of the relationship without words or seem to reflect something about the interviewee’s personality.
Like traditional documentaries, “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” shows academic talking heads who restrict their commentary to “Night.” There are interviews with University of Toronto Professor Naomi Seidman, who specializes in Jewish Studies; Edgewood College Professor Janet McCord, who was also a former student; Washington University in St. Louis Professor Erin McGlothlin, who specializes in German and Jewish Studies; and Simmons College Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Literature Lawrence Langer. It would have been nice, but ultimately unnecessary if Rudavsky had indicated whether they had a personal relationship with Wiesel. It is possible to infer from watching the movie that Seidman may be controversial, but Rudavsky puts them on the same playing field as if there was none, and each of their interpretations were considered uncontested and conclusive.
The most surprising section of “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” was the former Wiesel student interviews because it appeared after Elisha talked about a letter from his father that he read after Wiesel died. That letter probably should have closed the film because it gave the impression that it was the end of the documentary, but it was not. Former student appearances included Ingrid Anderson from Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center; author Ariel Burger who wrote “Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom;” journalist Sonari Glinton; and Professor Reinhold Boschki from Tübingen University’s Elie Wiesel Center. Only the latter exclusively is framed as explicitly continuing Wiesel’s work, not just inspired and bolstered after receiving Wiesel’s tutelage. This footage was only jarring when the same interviewee suddenly appeared in another location without an obvious transition to that space.
There could almost be an entirely different documentary from the footage shot in Newark New Jersey that covers the insights and impact of teacher Paris Murray and her seventh grade English class at North Star Academy. If “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” was structured slightly differently, it would land well as the final chapter, but it feels almost like the beginning of a new film because Wiesel’s death and Elijah’s visit to his relatives’ graves in Romania are too far apart. After Elisha says that his father lives on, this section would be perfect.
While “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” may have some structural flaws, overall, it is shocking how germane it feels to the present day and how Wiesel’s words would be controversial, not admired, today. The documentary also pulled punches when Marion alluded to the dissonance between Wiesel’s private beliefs and public stances and being coy about Elisha’s growing pains as if it is only due to living in a great man’s shadows, but people have a right to privacy even if it feels as if something big is left unsaid.
