65%User score 65 percent
A Midnight Clear
1992 · Drama · War
User Score
29 votes
Immortalised as one of the most scintillating and uplifting Christmas songs, 'Carol of the Bells' adapted from a popular and loved Ukrainian folk melody, came to represent the spirit of brotherhood and unity all over the world. The peaceful and neighbourly existence of three families, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish, sharing a large house, musical evenings and merriment in the city of Stanislaviv in the years preceding and post war, is shattered. First in the Soviet occupation and the persecution of the Polish family, then, by the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and the decimation of the Jewish family. Sacrificing their lives the Ukrainian family manage to save their neighbours' children and their own daughter. Death and loss come to these families, but the healing power and joy , and a promise that the Future Will Not be Cancelled which "Carol of the Bells' evokes will be everlasting.
Recommendations based on this film
Peter McGinn
March 3, 2023
If you are looking for a holiday offering that bucks the trend, in that it is nearly unrelentingly depressing, this is the film for you. Ladies, bring your tissues and guys, pick up your phones so you can distract yourself from the bleak and dark story arc. It is perhaps supremely ironic that such a positive and uplifting holiday song is deployed to highlight such a heart-achingly somber history, sort of like if they…
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