A Ukrainian woman came to Germany in 1943 fleeing the re-imposition of Stalinism in Kiev and stayed on...working as a scholar, teacher and translator of major novels by Dostoevsky...the five elephants of the title. At this point she is quite old, feeble, bent, but seems to have her marbles.
It was unclear to me why this person was chosen for a doc. Her story was moving but unexceptional...representative rather than compelling. I also had the nagging thought that we were told only a portion of the real story...she was canny about revealing only what she chose.
It did serve as a poignant reminder that all that suffering (Babi Yar, et al) will soon be forgotten, swept up in the dustbin of history. So it goes.
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