Four Seasons Lodge (2009) (Wednesday, January 27, 2010) (219)

Four Seasons Lodge is a small documentary about a Jewish Catskills bungalow camp where a group of several dozen Holocaust survivor families spend their summers. Now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, these men and women look back at their pre-War lives, reflect on the painful memories of life in the concentration camps and play politics in and around the community.

The summer the film was shot was an important one in its history as the members had previously voted to close and sell the camp to an outside group. As the summer proceeds, many of them have second thoughts despite the vocal grumblings of the camp president who spends his days doing upkeep on the failing infrastructure.

The structure of the film is very straightforward as we see the opening ceremony party on the first night of the summer and follow individual guests throughout getting each one's story. We see how each of these people survived their terrible histories and lived to create successful lives in the U.S. We see how some have re-married and some have created lives of mutual care with dear friends.

There is a certain comedic element to the film, which might on paper seem like a dramatic story. Both the camp president and superintendent are asked to work the entire day to make the fastidious guests happy. They constantly make faces at the camera and back-handed comments. All of this is done with love after twenty-some years of knowing everybody. Old people are funny - especially when dancing and telling jokes. There's something sweet and kitschy about the borscht-belty comedians and singers who come to the camp to entertain the people.

In the end, this is a cousin to films like A Walk on the Moon and Dirty Dancing, but not a replacement for them. This shows one reality of a camp in this region, but it is clearly a specific one connected to the Holocaust. The survivors each have their own stories and their own perspective on the War. This is a very nice film, if not totally brilliant.

Stars: 2.5 of 4