The Search

A film set in Germany immediately after the Second World War. There is a camp. The war is over and displaced children are gathered here; nobody knows who came from where. One of the children does not speak. He remembers the name Karel and says nothing else. They are put into an ambulance. The children are frightened by the closed vehicle, take it for gas, and run. Karel is left by a river. He is hungry, alone, and hiding. An American soldier finds him. Steve gives him food, the boy runs, and comes back the next day. From there the film is a story of learning. The soldier teaches him English, changes his name, and thinks about taking him to America. At the same time a woman is searching. A mother travels from camp to camp, looks at the lists, and is late every time. What the narrative is interested in is not reunion but speaking again: the boy's real journey is not being found but returning to words. The form is close to documentary. It was shot in ruined cities, in real locations, and most of the people in the crowd scenes are not actors. The boy playing Karel was Czechoslovak and did not speak English; he memorised his lines by imitating the sounds he heard. The film won the Academy Award for Best Story and a special Academy Award was given to the child actor; Montgomery Clift received his first nomination for it. Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon and Jarmila Novotná are in the cast. Fred Zinnemann directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes postwar drama and the realist cinema of the 1940s. Who it is not for: anyone bothered by emotional steering; the ending openly aims at the audience.