Anne Frank Remembered

Anne Frank has not been forgotten. More than 25 million copies of her diary--which has been turned into a play and a movie--have been sold. This intense, richly detailed documentary paints a broad portrait of Anne. Documentaries are a dime a dozen, but few stories are as truly powerful, as sincerely moving and poignant as Anne's. Director Jon Blair does a phenomenal job with this carefully detailed, thoughtful, emotional film (his previous documentary on Oskar Schindler so captivated Steven Spielberg that he was inspired to make Schindler's List). Blair unearths a 1980 interview with the only surviving member of the Frank family, Anne's father, Otto, who offers an unpublished portion of her diary. Blair also discovers previously unseen footage of her watching a 1941 wedding, the only known film of Anne to exist; it's a brief, but breathtaking image of a girl who inspired the world. Blair also interviews Peter Pepper, who hid with the Franks, and Hanneli Goslar, who befriended Anne and her sister at camp and depicts the Frank girls' last days. The most potent interview, though, is with Miep Gies, Otto's employee who risked her life to help the Franks. Gies, modest and not completely comfortable on camera, is so likable that she seems to embody Anne's touching words, spoken amidst the horror of their lives: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." Kenneth Branagh narrates and Glenn Close reads Anne's diary excerpts. --N.F. Mendoza