The Savior (2007)

What difference can one person make in the face of colossal tragedy? That question is the crux of Eugene Drucker's slim but stirring debut The Savior. Its hero, Gottfried Keller, is a violinist recruited by the German army during World War II to play for wounded and dying soldiers. But when Keller is suddenly ''asked'' to perform several concerts for Jewish concentration camp prisoners as part of a Nazi experiment, the experience unleashes in him a torrent of memories and emotions — about his Jewish ex-girlfriend and his naiveté concerning the horrors unfolding in his homeland. Artfully weaving Keller's past and present, Drucker (himself a renowned concert violinist) crafts a memorable cautionary tale about the perils of passivity. B+