The Song of Names

About the movie

Dovidl Rapoport and Martin Simmonds grew up as best friends, each considering the other like a brother. Their close relationship was despite their rocky start upon their initial meeting at age nine, when Dovidl's father, Zygmunt Rapoport, of Jewish faith from Warsaw, brought Dovidl, a violin prodigy, to London both to continue his violin tutelage and to get him out of Poland in 1939, with Martin's parents, Gilbert and Enid Simmonds, they an upper class musical family, taking Dovidl in as Zygmunt returned to Warsaw to rejoin the rest of his family. That rocky start was due to Gilbert giving Dovidl seemingly favored status as a guest in their house, as Gilbert vowed to Zygmunt that they would maintain Dovidl's Jewish faith (despite Dovidl growing further and further away from that aspect of his life as he grew into his late teen and early adult years), and in Dovidl's musical gifts far outstripping Martin's, he a talented enough pianist in his own right. That friendship hit an abrupt end of sorts when Dovidl failed to show up for his first major featured concert in London in 1951, he seemingly disappearing into thin air on his own volition. Dovidl's failure to perform that evening led to financial ruin for the Simmonds, with Gilbert passing of a heart attack a few months later arguably a further result. It's now 1986, and Martin, prominently working in the music business in London, has searched for Dovidl over all these years partly in wanting to deal with what he considers unfinished business, and as he believes that Dovidl may not have had someone to look out for him as he would have. Martin comes into evidence of Dovidl's recent whereabouts. Two parallel stories are then told, the first Martin and Dovidl's time together from 1939 to 1951 which may provide some clues as to why Dovidl left, and the second as Martin follows the leads to locate his "brother".—Huggo