Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII

Artfully, even elegantly constructed, Secret Lives skillfully probes issues of conflicting emotions and allegiances in a dark time, yet emerges as a loving affirmation of humanity's remarkable potential for goodness in the face of pervasive evil.

It lets us glimpse once again the stubborn, if slender, persistence of the humane.

Slesin's film is a profound meditation on the resilience of children -- their ability to take sustenance from whatever love is available -- and on the persistent presence of the child hidden within each grown-up.

These children are indeed the faces of war. It's just harder to recognize them because they're the ones someone cared enough to save.

The consequent pain, anger, and confusion on all sides disrupts the standard martyrology of the genre and exposes the ordinary human wreckage that can follow even the most extraordinary acts of heroism.

Ms. Slesin sums up the complicated feelings of Secret Lives with one well-chosen phrase: what these people are suffering from, she says, is the "trauma of gratitude." Her film is as complex and moving as that formulation.

It's a touching story that deserves to be told. Unfortunately, Slesin's presentation is conventional and uninspired (lots of boring talking heads). These heroes deserve better.