Covering Media

Betty and Yankel Elkes as seen in FOUR SEASONS LODGE, a film by Andrew Jacobs. Photo by Rick Nahmias. A First Run Features release.

Opened: 11/11/2009 Limited

Trailer: Click for trailer

Websites: Home

Genre: Documentary

Rated: Unrated

Brief Synopsis

In an inspiring and startlingly funny documentary, FOUR SEASONS LODGE follows a group of Holocaust survivors during what might be their final summer together at a bungalow colony in the Catskill mountains. Directed by New York Times journalist Andrew Jacobs, with beautiful cinematography by a team of filmmakers including Albert Maysles, the verite film explores the power of friendship and the drive to find joy despite painful memories. It is a counterintuitive Holocaust documentary: a fusion of ribald humor, stories of unimaginable loss, the last of the Borscht Belt crooners, and a family made entirely of friends and lovers. The characters dance, flirt, and fight as the fate of their community hangs in the balance.

Long Synopsis

FOUR SEASONS LODGE follows a group of Holocaust survivors, nearly all Polish Jews, who have spent 25 years summering together at an isolated rural compound in the Catskill Mountains of New York. They come for the raucous poker games, the dancing that goes on till dawn and the long summer days spent with others who understand their pasts, and their unfathomable pain.

The film focuses on a half-dozen characters over the course of a summer that might be their last one together. Among them are Tobias and Lola, who met in a Nazi concentration camp but only recently became lovers; Genya and Olga, two women whose 65-year-long friendship is alternately caustic, tender and revealing; Carl, the colony's president, who struggles to keep 100 demanding residents content while tending his ailing wife; and Hymie, the vice president, who is the colony poet, beloved jokester and a moody misanthrope who refuses to reveal his war-time past.

Midway through the summer, a rebellious knot of residents rises up to fight against the sale of the colony. Carl and Hymie, exhausted from the workload and dispirited by the death of so many friends, believe it is time to pack it in. Sides are drawn and the combatants dig in their heels. But the rebels say that as long as they are alive, the lodgers should enjoy life in what they describe as "our paradise in the mountains."

During the film's second half, meetings are held, lawyers are hired and heated squabbles break out. The outcome comes as a surprise, even to the lodgers themselves.

Over the course of the summer, age-old rivalries are settled and cherished relationships come apart. As the summer draws to a close, the lodgers throw one last party, the fate of their colony undetermined but their spirits unbowed. Inevitably, sickness takes its toll. The film is a subtle exploration of aging and death, the power of memory and the ability of human beings to celebrate life despite numbing loss.

FOUR SEASONS LODGE is a counterintuitive film about the Holocaust: a verité, uplifting and insightful portrait of people who embrace their dark pasts with striking openness and, at times, black humor.

From the darkness of Hitler's Europe to the lush mountains of New York's Catskills, Four Seasons Lodge follows a community of Holocaust survivors who come together each summer at their beloved bungalow colony to dance, cook, fight and flirt -- and celebrate their survival. Beautifully photographed by a team of cinematographers led by Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens), this unexpectedly funny film confronts sobering topics like aging, loss and the legacy of the Holocaust, capturing the Lodgers' intoxicating passion for life as the fate of their colony hangs in the balance.

Haunted by the past but driven by an unquenchable passion for living, an aging group of Holocaust survivors gathers each summer at an idyllic hideaway in the Catskills, where they savor tightly bonded friendships, find new love and celebrate their survival. Directed by New York Times journalist Andrew Jacobs, with the legendary Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens) contributing cinematography, Four Seasons Lodge is an inspiring and surprisingly funny documentary that captures what may be the final season for a remarkable tribe of survivors who have found that dancing, laughter and late-night revelry may be the best revenge.