The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Features  |  Reviews

Review: Ahead of Time

Feeling the burn
By BETSY SHERMAN  |  November 17, 2010
3.0 3.0 Stars

1111_aheadoftime_home

The journalist as advocate and activist has rarely been contained in a more compelling package than Ruth Gruber. The subject of Robert Richman's nimble documentary blazed a trail in 1935 as the first reporter to tour the Soviet Arctic, and in 1947, she took photos on board the Exodus after it had been turned away from Palestine by the British. In 1944, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes chose her to escort a thousand Holocaust refugees across the Atlantic to safe haven in America. Ahead of Time finds the 97-year-old eager to share her life story, which began in Brooklyn and included a PhD earned at age 20 in Cologne. Richman films Gruber poring over her faded notebook from the 1944 voyage, wherein are transcribed testimonies that would reveal the truth about Nazi atrocities. A survivor of that passage reminisces: "It's like two people, one burns his hand and the other doesn't. You feel for this person who burned their hand, but you don't feel the burn. Ruth feels the burn."

Related: Review: In a Dream, Review: Sweetgrass, Review: Gerrymandering, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , documentary, Journalism, film review
| More
Add Comment
HTML Prohibited

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 06/04 ]   China Blue: "Firefly Projects"  @ Newport Art Museum
[ 06/04 ]   Coolidge Corner Art Festival  @ Edward Devotion School
[ 06/04 ]   "Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey"  @ Boston Athenæum
ARTICLES BY BETSY SHERMAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: THESE AMAZING SHADOWS  |  May 19, 2011
    If movies are our kiss-kiss-bang-bang arenas of desire, then this addictive movie-centric documentary from Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton makes the Library of Congress sound like the Playboy Mansion.
  •   REVIEW: PROM  |  May 06, 2011
    A teen pic aimed at the tween demographic, Prom turns what could have been a string of punch lines and lump-in-the-throat passages into an affecting group portrait.
  •   REVIEW: IT (1927)  |  April 27, 2011
    Silent-movie stardom gained a new dimension with Clara Bow in It, which was directed by Clarence G. Badger and an uncredited Josef von Sternberg.
  •   REVIEW: RUBBER  |  April 27, 2011
    When a tire lifts itself from the desert sand of the West and rolls down the road to the sound of recorder music, it feels like one of those old Film Board of Canada shorts about the triumph of the spirit.
  •   REVIEW: YOUR HIGHNESS  |  April 13, 2011
    The magnificent Danny McBride (HBO's Eastbound and Down ) co-wrote and stars in this clever spoof that reveals the human frailties beneath all those sword 'n' sorcery clichés.

 See all articles by: BETSY SHERMAN

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2011 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group