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| FOUR SEASONS LODGE |
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| Featuring: Hymie Abramowitz, Tosha Abramowitz, Olga Bowman, Lola Wenglin, Aron Adelman |
| Director: Andrew Jacobs |
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Distributor: First Run Features |
| DVD release: 17 August 2010 |
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Runtime: 97 min. (1 disc) |
| Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen |
| DVD Features: Aspect ratio 2.35:1, Audio tracks (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English), Deleted scenes, The director on making the film, Stories of survival and life after the war
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 What a surprisingly joyous, insightful and rewarding movie this was! Who would guess that spending 97 minutes with a group of elderly Holocaust survivors would be entertaining? What is so remarkable and moving about Four Seasons Lodge is that it could have been grim and serious, but it is not. It is instead warm and often quite funny. This film is not a requiem but a celebration.
The actual Four Seasons Lodge is a summer retreat in the Catskills of New York. For 36 years, a group of Holocaust survivors have met there and savored their friendship. Though they are spread across various parts of the country, it is clear they all have a special bond. Indeed, many of the lodgers bluntly state that their blood relations were massacred by the Nazis and they are the last of their family left. Their fellow lodgers are a surrogate family to them.
The film offers many of them a chance to tell their story (many share truly traumatic ones; others simply decline). It is clear and understandable that they will forever haunted by what they experienced. Those years of horror shaped who they are (perhaps the most disturbing shot in the film: as a group of women plays cards, the camera pans over their forearms and their concentration camp tattoos are clearly visible). The triumph of the film: it becomes clear that while the lodgers will not forget what happened, they did not let the Holocaust defeat them. They are not somber but happy. When they are together, they laugh, hug, nag each other, tell dirty jokes and dance. In a sense, they instinctively know that enjoying life and being happy is the ultimate victory over the Nazis.
Oftentimes simply placing a camera in front of people who have something to share and letting the moment happen naturally can often times be just as rewarding a movie-going experience as the most expensive, special effects laden blockbuster. A small documentary such as Four Seasons Lodge is a prime example.
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