"Debajo del Mundo" ("Under the World") is an eloquent ode to the will to survive. Set in wartime Poland and drawn from actual events told to Argentine writer-directors Beda Docampo Feijoo and Juan Bautista Stagnaro, the film was shot in Spanish with Czechoslovakia standing in for Poland.
So immediately compelling is "Debajo del Mundo" (at the Music Hall) that you forget you're hearing Spanish when you're supposed to be hearing Polish. (The makers of this quietly overpowering film are best known for having collaborated with director Maria Luisa Bemberg on the script for her 1984 Oscar-nominated "Camila.")
It is September, 1942. A saddened Polish baron gathers his Jewish farm workers to tell them that his attempts to intercede with the local German commandant on their behalf have at last failed and that they must report for deportation to the Ukraine.
Nachman (Sergio Renan) tells his wife Liba (Barbara Mugica) and three sons Baruj (Oscar Ferrigno), Josef (Gabriel Rovito) and Szachna (Bruno Stagnaro) that they must accept their fate--that they will be guilty of pride to do otherwise. Baruj and Josef, who appear to be in their late teens, defy their father and insist on trying to survive in the forest. Nachman yields only in order to keep his family together.