Nana is a heartfelt, but unfocused doc about Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant, a woman who survived the Holocaust while working as Dr. Josef Mengele's translator. Director Serena Dykman, Maryla's granddaughter, combines archival footage of her grandmother along with footage of herself and her mother providing their own perceptives. The footage of Maryla alone is enough to provide the film with sufficient insight because she comes across as honest, intelligent and articulate while she struggles with her painful memories. When asked why she thinks Hitler committed such heinous crimes against humanity, she answers, candidly, that she doesn't know. Whenever she's not onscreen, Nana begins to meander and to lose its focus. Everything else feels like potatoes, by contrast, and mere filler to extend the film's running time. Yes, her survival story needed to be told for future generations and because history will repeat itself if we don't learn from it, but the way that her story is told in Nana is undermined by poor editing. Perhaps Nana would've worked better as a short documentary that solely focused on its interesting subject, Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant, the film's heart, mind and soul. Nana opens via First Run Features at Cinema Village.

---

Rampage
Directed by Brad Peyton