Past Perfect

“Past Perfect” is a spirited meditation on the elusiveness and inaccessibility of (Jewish) history as conveyed through sightseeing tours of “Jewish” Poland, a grandmother’s recollection of life in America during War II, and memoir-like “last moments” of a great aunt believed to have died in Treblinka. Shot almost entirely in contemporary Poland, “Past Perfect” lyrically portrays the relentless yet ultimately futile attempt to resuscitate a history literally gone up in smoke. “It is not entirely out of line to call ‘Past Perfect’- filmmaker Cynthia Madansky’s meditation on Jewish history, notably the Shoah – spirited and darkly amusing. After all, Madansky’s experimental excursion through an emotional and physical landscape predicated on obliteration, omission and, more than half a century after the fact, a pernicious, creeping ‘Holocaust fatigue,’ embodies the same blend of resignation and outrage that defines the very best Yiddish jokes…. In ‘Past Perfect’ Madansky manages – frequently, brilliantly – to evoke a similar pang as greets the historian, documentarian, genealogist, or traveler when confronting the catastrophic absence that is the Holocaust. When all is effaced, the only logical response is speculation.”- David Rakoff, New York City, January, 2002 Selected Screenings: Rotterdam Film Festival, 2002; Museum of Modern Art, NYC, 2002; Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2002; Barcelona Jewish Film Festival, 2002; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 2002; Margaret Mead Film Festival, 2002; Thesaloniki Film Festival, 2002; Boston Jewish Film Festival, 2002