James Hawes
One Life

It would take an unscalable heart of stone not to be touched by the true story of Nicholas Winton, the British Schindler, for the simplicity and sincere frankness with which it is told. A story that originated in Europe during the Second World War and was brought to light in the 1980s in England, where it shone in all its splendor on popular British TV. A man, Winton, who, with the help of his mother Babette, took on the Kindertransport Operation, meaning to send trains from Prague to save Jewish and non-Jewish children before the Nazi occupation.

Anthony Hopkins plays Winton, a retired stockbroker in the 1980s who, while sorting the clutter of his study, focuses on a scrapbook with photos and notes of the 669 Czech Jewish children he and others saved from certain deportations, with no historian knowing the story. Winton set his mind on saving as many children as possible at any cost, which involved raising funds, the desperate request for visas from government departments, and finding English families to foster the children. All a series of cold bureaucratic acts that clash with the questioning and unsettling gaze of the children brought by their families to Winton, hoping to see them board that train to save them and snatch them from a foregone end. The parents have only one last strong hug remaining before the painful separation. Winton is left with the task of filling out records on the children and making lists for the upcoming departures, with the same determination of someone who knows he is doing something good and right. The moments of departures and arrivals between the stations of Czechoslovakia and Prague are pages of great cinema, magnificently interpreted.

There are scenes that are difficult to forget and there is not a wasted moment; every frame hits and impacts directly and harshly. The story of One Life is thrillingly told, with respect, modesty and passion, anger, and helplessness. With One Life, cinema knows how to serve History, and precisely because of this, it is an unforgettable film.

We need more films that show these men and women who have done something courageous and have saved lives. Winton is a humble man who became a hero. The hero who will reunite with the 669 children he saved on the BBC program That's Life, in an apotheosis of emotions, tears, and remembrance of those who didn’t make it, like the children of the last train. It is a film that moved me, making me reach for a tissue before the credits rolled, making me experience deep emotions, often contrasting, making me root for the only possible solution, the salvation of everyone from the anguish and horror of deportations.

A film that knows how to bring the viewer right into the middle of the most tragic events, in an almost transformative experience, to question himself. Which never hurts.