One Life

For the first time in ages we had a family night at the cinema to see the film “One Life”. It is unusual for my wife and I to agree on a film to watch, let alone the kids as well!

Firstly, it is an excellent film and quite moving at times. It is a real shame that it doesn’t seem that popular - there were only about 12 people in the viewing we were in, then again it was on a very wet Thursday night.

It tells the story of Nicholas Winton and his colleagues who rescued over 600 children from Prague just before the start of the Second World War. It switches between his life at the end of the 1980s and his experiences during the war. It recreates the famous clip from the TV programme “That’s Life” where they reveal the people that he rescued.

However one of the most moving bits is what happened to the last train and the impact it had on him.

The film reminded me a lot of “Schindler’s List”. I studied the book for A Level English and it was the only book that I actually enjoyed on that course. It had a big impact on me and this was only enhanced when the film came out a few years later.

There is a common theme of someone saving Jews from the Nazi regime during the war but it is also the realisation at the end that each of them has that there could have been more saved. Despite all their efforts they seemed to be more drawn to those they couldn’t save than those they did.

They did so much and saved so many.