Product Details

• Actors: Chris Cooper
• Directors: Davide Ferrario
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Surround Sound, THX, Widescreen
• Language: English, German, Russian
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: New Yorker Video / Cinema Guild
• DVD Release Date: August 19, 2008
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001A8HTXW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,394 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

In the winter of 1945, Primo Levi, one of the century's great writers, was liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. With the war still underway, he embarked on a thousand-mile journey to his home in Turin, Italy a strange, beguiling odyssey memorialized in his book, "The Reawakening." Sixty years later, director Davide Ferrario set out to follow in Levi's footsteps. Retracing his historic trip, the film weaves a path through a modern Europe that has both changed and remained eerily the same from democratic rallies in the East to neo-Nazi demonstrations in the West. Narrated by Academy Award® winning actor Chris Cooper, Primo Levi's Journey is a comic, frightening, and picaresque road trip through history.

Special Features:
- Featurette: Making of Primo Levi's Journey
- Enhanced for 16x9 Tvs
- Optional English subtitles
- Scene Selections

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Documentary following Levi's journey starts out artsy but ends strong, February 13, 2012

By 

S. Smith-Peter (Staten Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Primo Levi's Journey (DVD)

"Primo Levi, born in Turin, Italy, in 1919, and trained as a chemist, was arrested during the Second World War as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. His experience in the death camp and his subsequent travels through Eastern Europe were the subject of powerful memoirs, fiction and poetry. Levi died in Turin in April 1987." From:[...]

I decided to start with this basic information because the documentary assumes the viewer already knows about Levi. I'd recommend watching "Interviews" first. You can find it on the menu. This gives background on the Italian documentary filmmakers and why they decided to trace Levi's journey. It seems that Levi's works are very commonly assigned in high school in Italy, but then people usually forget about them. The filmmakers wanted to make his journey come alive.

The documentary retraces Levi's journey after being freed from Auschwitz. He falls in with a Soviet convoy and ends up going deep into the USSR before finally going back west and returning to Italy. What the filmmakers did is go to the places Levi went and see what was there.

While the documentary begins by being very artsy, it gathers power over the course of it and ends by being a powerful statement about the continuing relevance of Levi's work and life. The film shot in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc, is often really beautiful. I've been to Russia, and this documentary really captures the feel of the place.

This is not really a straightforward documentary about Primo Levi but a more personal response to his work and journey. One of the points is that this is Europe. Both east and west are one Europe. I found the section on Germany to be especially thought-provoking and there's an implied contrast with the slower-paced life in the the east that's very interesting. The section on Chernobyl is also moving.

Not a perfect work, but one worth seeing.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is not a movie, July 28, 2009

By 

Nickpaperett (Winston-Salem, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Primo Levi's Journey (DVD)

We were disappointed. This is not a movie based on Primo Levi's book. It's a collection of interviews. Not interesting.