52 Films by Women Vol 2. 31. LET ME GO (Director: Polly Steele)
The drama, Let Me Go , written and directed by Polly Steele, is loosely based on the true story of Helga Schneider, who, in the film at least, was reunited with her mother in 2000 after a separation lasting almost sixty years. For most families this might be cause for celebration. In Helga’s case it is the opposite. Her mother worked as a guard in a Nazi death camp during World War Two. She took part in the systematic execution of Jews at the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She is a convicted war criminal but late in life is entitled to medical care, not separated - at least according to the film - from other old folk. Let Me Go is partly about putting one’s parents on trial, a genre that has included Costa Gavras’s 1989 film Music Box starring Jessica Lange and Armin Mueller-Stahl and written by Joe Eszterhas in his prime. It is about the difficulty of mothering when one has had an appalling role model. It is also about future generations healing wounds, not that the wound...