Review: Bau, Artist At War (Close-Up Culture)

Dr. Laura Wilhelm of LauraWil Intercultural offers her early review of Sean McNamara’s powerful historical drama Bau, Artist at War, starring Emile Hirsch (Into The Wild, Milk, Lone Survivor, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Inbar Lavi (Lucifer, Imposters). The film will have its world theatrical premiere on September 26, 2025, and is distributed by ShowBiz Direct and Republic Pictures.

To the vast array of gripping Holocaust dramas such as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Joathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, we can now add Sean McNamara’s Bau, Artist at War, starring Emile Hirsch and Inbar Lavi. The tragically true story features the suspenseful wartime experiences of Joseph Bau, whose talents for forgery saved hundreds of lives that could so easily have been lost in Adolf Hitler’s infernal concentration camps.

Reagan hits all the right notes at all the right moments, taking audiences on a powerful trip back to the height of the Cold War. Simultaneously, the films looks at how a small-town boy from Illinois would grow up to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, governor of California, and president of the United States. Many defining moments of Ronald Reagan’s private life are also depicted – lessons learned from his mother, advice he received from trusted friends and advisors, and his loving marriage to Nancy Reagan.

The Polish-born Bau, who resembled none other than Albert Einstein, was in fact one of the famous ”Schindler Jews” who defied death or capture in a Czech munitions factory under Oskar Schindler’s supervision. He immigrated to Israel after World War II and finally managed to put himself on the world map as a talented artist.

Bau (Hirsch) is sustained through the atrocities of camp life by his love for Rebecca Tennenbaum (Lavi). Their illicit wedding in the Płaszów concentration camp is movingly portrayed in Schindler’s List, as well as Bau, Artist at War. The real Joseph and Rebecca appear in Schindler’s renowned epilogue, placing rocks on Oskar Schindler’s grave along with their fellow factory survivors.

The elegant cinematography, stark palettes, and haunting score give Bau, Artist at War an elegiac feel that helps to offset the horrors it depicts. There is always room on the screens of the world for another eloquent Holocaust testimonial. Humankind owes the victims at least that much.

Film Montage