Music of Remembrance’s “Astounding” What a Life!, a British Detention Camp Revue

Philippa Kiraly — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:16:58 +0000

Monday’s concert, like so many others in this series, brought a largely unknown aspect of the Holocaust to our attention, with a satiric revue, What a Life! by composer Hans Gál, composed and performed when he was in an internment camp on the Isle of Man off the coast of Wales in the United Kingdom. Like many others, I never knew until recently that the British interned anyone they thought might be supporting German aspirations, and since they couldn’t tell who was bona fide and who was an infiltrator among the thousands of Jewish refugees pouring into the country, they interned them all until they had checked them out.

An Interview with Detention Director Joseph Kahn

Tony Kay — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:20:28 +0000

But Detention is more than just pastiche. All of those disparate threads intersect by the movie's end, and Kahn delivers the entire sensory-overloaded package with pinpoint accuracy. By backing up its relentless MTV-stoked pace with a distinctive sensibility (and a heart), Detention just might signal a sea change in music video-influenced moviemaking. As The SunBreak's own Josh Bis said, "I left feeling won over by something that I probably should have hated," and I too came out of the screening seriously, mightily impressed.

The SunBreak » Detention

Music of Remembrance’s “Astounding” What a Life!, a British Detention Camp Revue

An Interview with Detention Director Joseph Kahn