Chaja Silberschmidt: Laura Fraser	Mrs. Kalman: Isabella Rossellini
Mr. Kalman: Jeroen Krabbe	Mr. Silberschmidt: Maximilian Schell
Concierge: David Bradley	Sofie: Heather Weeks
Mrs. Silberschmidt: Marianne Sagebrecht	Mr. Apfelschnitt: Chaim Topol
Simcha: Adam Monty	Director: Jeroen Krabbe

30 Second Bottom Line: Set in Antwerp, Belgium in1972, a fashionable free spirited 20 year old Jewish woman has her views of religion, culture and most importantly herself, challenged on two levels. First, when she visits her parents, they constantly discuss the holocaust. Second, she begins working as a nanny for a Hassidic Jewish family. Can she move forward yet not lose her history?

Story Line: Chaja Silberschmidt (Laura Fraser) is an attractive 20 year old woman who wears blue jeans and miniskirts and sees no reason to wait until marriage to enjoy the sexual pleasures of a man. She has trouble keeping a job and at the urging of a family friend, Mr. Apfelschnitt (Chaim Topol), takes a position as a nanny, only because she is about to be evicted from her apartment for non-payment of rent. A turning point in the film comes when Apfelschnitt gives new meaning to the phrase, "good news and bad news."

While her parents, the Silberschmidt's (Maximilian Schell and Marianne Sagebrecht) would welcome her home, she wants her independence. Her parents are holocaust survivors and her mother deals with the past by baking cakes and weaving. Her father has a fixation on retrieving two suitcases of luggage (left luggage), that he buried in the town of Antwerp, Belgium, during WWII. In those suitcases were things of personal value such as a silver candelabra, a violin, and photo albums.

Chaja thinks her parents need to get over the war and move on with their lives. While she is prepared to deal with her parents, a surprise is in store when she works for a Hassidic Jewish family with five children. She becomes attached to their four-year-old son, Simcha (Adam Monty). Simcha does not speak, not from a medical condition, but because he has yet to find anything worth talking about. Of course the boy at some point talks and we later learn just how important that is to him, his parents and Chaja.

The third relationship that causes Chaja to ponder where she is and where she is going, comes to light on an outing with her best friend, Sofie (Heather Weeks). Chaja has broken up with her lover, and with her blessing, Sofie is taking over where she left off. They get a good laugh from this at a picnic where the two young women go swimming in the nude. Chaja learns that because she is assumed not to be Jewish, she is looked at differently than if she were.

Tell Me More About It: Although this film in no way tries to deliver the epic story of Sunshine, it addresses some of the same issues with a much lighter touch. Knowing who you are is very much related to keeping your family name from prior generations. In Sunshine, it took three generations before the grandson decided to reclaim the family name. In Left Luggage, the names were kept but the ethnic traditions often were not. The saying in this movie about Chaja wearing jeans is "…they can give you cancer." The Hassidic family has rules such as women not wearing trousers; no movies, radio or TV; a man can't touch a woman, even to shake her hand, if she is not his wife. Wearing a mini skirt can have you labeled as a whore.

The acting in the film is good overall, but at times a little uneven. While this is a story about a Jewish family, the message is universal and applies to every ethnic group.

As in F. W. Murnau's classic B&W film, The Last Laugh, (Murnau was also the director of Nosferatu), the importance of a uniform comes into play. The gentile concierge (David Bradley) in the building where the Kalman's live says, "I can't do my job without my uniform." This man is an out and out racist. But if you asked him about Jews, while he might not say "some of my best friends are among them," he probably does not feel that he hates Jews. He wants things to be in order and for that to happen, he needs his uniform. He's basically a building super with an inflated value of his importance and relative standing to other human beings. Even seemingly small instances of racial or ethnic superiority can potentially lead to hate crimes down the road.

There is considerable charm in Left Luggage in the midst of very serious issues. As it was pointed out, the Jews that adapted were killed in the Holocaust along with the ones who did not. Integration has its merits, but no one should believe that inclusion makes one a family member. It's fine to embrace the majority culture as long as you don't reject your own ethnic background.

Laura Fraser: A Knight's Tale	Isabella Rossellini: Big Night
Jeroen Krabbe: The Fugitive	Maximillian Schell: Deep Impact
Marianne Sagebrecht: Johnny	Chaim Topol: Time Elevator
David Bradley: Debut	Heather Weeks: Hilary and Jackie
Adam Monty: Daddy, I don't Like it like this-TV