'Lucky Ones' lands and Paul Simon sounds off

They say truth is stranger than fiction, and it’s also often more interesting, as several fact-based dramas and documentaries coming our way demonstrate.

The much-anticipated miniseries, We Were the Lucky Ones, the story of a Polish-Jewish family during World War II, which is based on the novel Georgia Hunter wrote about her family’s story, just premiered its first three episodes on Hulu in the US – and the good news is that it lives up to the hype. It is an epic historical drama, the kind they rarely make anymore, and it will keep you on the edge of your seat – even if you’ve read the book – as the family struggles for survival.

The bad news is it is not available yet in Israel, although it will be shown here on Disney+, but a release date has not yet been announced.

The story starts in Radom, Poland in 1938, where the Kurc family gathers for Passover and then, just a few months later, is scattered all over Europe and the world once the Nazis attack in 1939. The family members find themselves in Siberia, Ukraine, Italy, Casablanca and Rio, in addition to Poland, as they try to stay at least one step ahead of the Nazis.

The sparkling cast includes Joey King as the strong-willed daughter Halina (King has an uncanny resemblance to Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls and she played the little girl who was bullied in Taylor Swift’s famous “Mean” video), and Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) as one of the sons, who is a musician/engineer. 

The series also features half a dozen of the biggest Israeli stars, including Lior Ashkenazi as the Kurc patriarch and Hadas Yaron and Amit Rahav as two of the Kurc children, with Moran Rosenblatt and Michael Aloni as the children’s spouses. Lihi Kornowski, who can currently be seen in the movie Daniel Auerbach, also plays a key role.

Part of what makes the show so watchable is that while you may think you have seen every variation on Holocaust narratives, you haven’t. The tragedy played out in so many ways all over the world, as did stories of resourcefulness and heroism.

The documentary

A NEW documentary tells another story of a very resilient Jew. The Shoshani Riddle, which will be shown on Kan 11 on March 30 after the news (and will be available afterwards on Kan.org.il), is also playing at the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Cinematheques.

This fascinating film, which was directed by Michael Grynszpan, is about an enigmatic, extremely eccentric, and unkempt vagabond known as Mr. Shoshani (among half a dozen other aliases), who was a teacher and scholar of such brilliance  that he attracted disciples such as Nobel Prize winner Eli Weisel and renowned philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. 

Speaking about the bible, the Talmud, philosophy, literature and many other subjects, he struck those who knew him as the most brilliant man they had ever encountered. He kept the basic facts of his life shrouded in mystery and no one even knew for sure if the polyglot scholar was Ashkenazi or Mizrahi.

Director Grynszpan developed a magnificent obsession with Shoshani and devoted a decade of his life to making the film, traveling to at least three continents to interview those who knew him and track down his writings. You’ll have to see this movie, as gripping as any fictional mystery drama, to find out whether he discovered the location of Shoshani’s lost manuscripts and what they revealed – or didn’t – about his teaching.

BERLIN BLUES, an appealing new TV series showing on Yes TV Drama, Yes VOD, and Sting+ which started on March 27, is a look at an Israeli couple who move to Berlin, and anyone who has ever relocated to a new country will be able to relate to it. The series was created by Itamar Rotschild and Dana Idisis, who are partners both personally and professionally, and is based on a period when they attempted to relocate to Germany with their child. 

Rotschild also stars as Yona, a musician who is hired by a German orchestra, and he previously acted in the series The Echo of Your Voice about three generations of musicians. Not surprisingly, he is a musician himself. Idisis created the acclaimed series On the Spectrum and wrote the screenplay for Nir Bergman’s Here We Are.

When they move to wintry Berlin, Yona is happy being part of a world-class orchestra, while Talia (Shira Naor), struggles to write her second novel and feels isolated and depressed in this new city. Even though she meets a large contingent of Israeli expats, she finds herself at odds with her husband, and it gradually becomes clear that the move has exacerbated, rather than created, problems she has with herself and with their marriage.

It’s hard not to think that had the series been set in the post-October 7 present, the characters would find a great deal more to be blue about, specifically antisemitism, which is on the rise in Berlin following the outbreak of the war. One of the running jokes in the series is just how welcoming most of the bohemian Germans they meet are, with one of them even saying his family refused to invite his grandfather to family events because of his Nazi past. But it’s still enjoyable to watch and features many good German and Israeli actors, among them, Knut Berger, who starred in Eytan Fox’s Walk on Water 20 years ago.

PAUL SIMON is one of the most reclusive musicians and so it’s a treat to see him open up in the new two-part documentary, Paul Simon: In Restless Dreams, directed by master documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, and currently on Yes Docu and Yes VOD. 

Simon gives extensive interviews and allows cameras into the studio in his Texas home, as he works on his new album Seven Psalms, which was released last spring. He reveals how the idea for it came to him in a dream, and also how he struggled after he lost his hearing in one ear. Wynton Marsalis is one of the musicians who comes to Simon’s Texas ranch to collaborate with him on the album.

The documentary is also a look back at his life and career, and features rare clips of him playing with his former partner Art Garfunkel when they were teens, and of his life in London in the 1960s. I thought I knew a lot about Simon, but I learned a great deal from this. I hadn’t known, for example, that the classic song “Sounds of Silence” was initially a flop, or that he spent years juggling law school in Brooklyn and his music career before Simon and Garfunkel made it. 

I also didn’t know that Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson was the one who made the groundbreaking decision to call the duo by their real last names – at a time when, as Simon points out, even an iconoclast like Bob Dylan changed his name from Zimmerman. 

In short, this documentary is a treasure trove for those who love Paul Simon’s music.