SJCA: The Last Suit film discussion

Saratoga Jewish Community Arts, with a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York and sponsored by Temple Sinai of Saratoga Springs, presents a zoom panel discussion on January 8, 2023 at 7 PM of the character driven 2016 film, The Last Suit, written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Pablo Solarz. He worked on this film on and off for twelve years before confirming the message as he originally intended.

The storyline is about one man’s attempt to reconcile with his past at the end of his life. It is a poignant reminder of the importance of not going to one’s grave with any regrets. It tells a tale that feels uplifting even when it dwells on harrowing historical events heard frequently before.

Abraham Bursztein survived Auschwitz and escaped to Argentina with the help of his friend Piotrek. In the seventy or so years since, Abraham worked as a tailor in Buenos Aires, raised a large family, and totally lost touch with the man that saved his life. As he approaches 90, he is looking at spending his remaining days confined to a nursing home. Eluding his family’s plan to move him into a nursing home, he sets off with the goal of returning to Poland, the name he will not say aloud, where he hopes to find his friend and gift the last suit he’ll ever make.  He now embarks on the reverse of his post-war escape.

Flying to Spain and training across Europe, he confronts all his anger and fears. The flashbacks of the wartime life in Poland convey the horror and heartbreak of losing his entire family without subjecting the audience to the kinds of graphic imagery typical in films of this kind.

“The filmmaker, Solarz,” says SJCA Coordinator Phyllis Wang, “is quite remarkable in creating a three-dimensional central character that avoids stereotyping and exhibits wisdom, humor, suffering, and shrewdness while facing, what to him is being cast off from his family, like an old shoe, to a nursing home.”

Zoom panel discussion of The Last Suit is January 8 at 7 PM. Please register at sjca.sjcf@gmail.com . It is available to watch free (with ads) on Tubi and is for rent on Amazon and YouTube. It is also free with a ChaiFlicks subscription ($6 a month, $60 a year).