I've seen a lot of movies about the Holocaust, most of which depict the horrors of the epoch to the backdrop of the story (Schindler's List and Life Is Beautiful, to name a couple). Rarely do these films stick around long enough to show the aftermath of the situation. We almost never see how lost people have become in the world without their loved ones or home to return to, nor do we see the mental trauma in not knowing if a loved one is still alive, looking for you in the ruins of World War II.
Fred Zinneman's The Search (1948) tries to tell that story, only through the eyes of a boy who was so young when the war began he didn't realize he had a mother until after the war. In a role for which he received an Honorary Academy Award, Ivan Jandl plays Karel Malik, a lost Czchekhloslovakian boy in postwar Germany. We first meet him in a refugee camp for Holocaust-surviving children (Karel is an Auschwitz survivor), and it is here that director Fred Zinneman gets us completely engaged in this involved and moving story. One cannot help but feel sorrow for the boys as the narrator explains that the children cannot tell the difference between the Gestapo and American soldiers, and therefore still feel they are in a concentration camp and their lives are in constant danger. Indeed, at a time when the children are encouraged to take extra helpings of bread and food they still get up from the table and raise their arms, ostensibly to show the SS they aren't stealing extra food.
Fearing for his life, Karel unwittingly escapes from the refugee camp. A short while later he meets American soldier Ralph Stevenson (Montgomery Clift), and the two form a friendship that comprises the bulk of the film. While Ralph is teaching Karel English and the nuances of civilized life, Karel's mother (Jarmila Novotna) searches refugee centers around the country for her son.
The scenes are edited together by Zinneman in a way that suggests both physical and emotional distance between the boy and mother while making them seem not too far apart. For example, Karel and Ralph visit the refugee camp Karel's mother had worked at immediately after she decides to go off across the continent to look for her son. The dramatic tension is given more impetus here because of the reality of the war that has become common knowledge. Because many of us are aware of the horrors of World War II, a story about a boy and mother in search of one another comes across even stronger (especially to a postwar audience).
The film was the first big hit for Fred Zinneman, and was Montgomery Clift's screen debut. But Ivan Jandl steals the film as Karel, making us wish we could reach out and give the boy a home if he doesn't find his mother. Attempting to reach these heights of emotion in film has unfortunately become cliché; frequently films try too hard for audience sympathy, and it becomes a deterrent. The Search is an example of poignant melodrama at its best, and tells an incredibly moving and wonderful story along the way.