Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995                   TAG: 9506060017
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: S-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

STORY OF ANNE FRANK TOLD BY THOSE WHO KNEW HER BEST

So it made sense that Blair should be approached to detail the life of another Holocaust figure, one already made legendary through her teen-ager's diary: Anne Frank.

It made sense, perhaps, except to Blair himself. He balked at the idea.

``I really wasn't interested,'' Blair said, recalling his reaction when contacted by the Anne Frank Charity in England. ``I said, `Look, I dealt with the Holocaust 11 or 12 years ago, thanks very much. Once was enough.

``And in any event, everything that's ever been said about Anne Frank has probably been said.''

No, he was told: A definitive documentary had yet to be done.

The girl's poignant diary, published after her death at age 15 in a German concentration camp, captivated readers worldwide and put a face on the nearly incomprehensible murder of 6 million Jews.

It was the basis for a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, ``The Diary of Anne Frank,'' as well as a 1959 movie based on the play. A new edition of ``The Diary of a Young Girl'' is currently on best-seller lists.

But, Blair agreed, after some research, there was room for a nonfiction film detailing her life, her death and the brave, failed effort of Dutch friends who hid Anne and her family from the Nazis from 1942 to 1944.

The filmmaker capitulated. The result is ``Anne Frank Remembered,'' debuting Thursday night at 9 on the Disney Channel.

Using photos, rare footage and interviews with family, friends and fellow concentration camp inmates, the documentary offers an unsparing, detail-laden look at a vibrant young woman impaled by barbarism.

British actor-director Kenneth Branagh contributes a restrained, effective narration. Glenn Close reads Anne's words from the diary she addressed as ``Dear Kitty,'' the actress' voice a match for the writer's precocious maturity.

The film includes a brief snippet of a home movie showing Anne (pronounced Anna), the first time the footage has been seen, Blair said.

Once he decided to take on the project, the filmmaker says he saw he had the burden of rescuing history from the brink.

``I realized that the kind of actuarial imperative meant it would probably never be possible to do it again,'' he said from his London office. ``The fact is, the people [involved] are dying.''

At the outset, Blair was faced with the frustration that the key figure was gone: Otto Frank, Anne's father, died in 1980. Brief clips of past interviews given by Frank are included in ``Anne Frank Remembered.''

Of the eight people hidden in an annex of the Frank business in Amsterdam - including Anne, sister Margot, mother Edith and four other Jews - Otto Frank alone survived the Nazi camps after their location was betrayed.

Blair discovered important research gaps that could yet be filled in. Miep Gies, who as a young Dutch girl risked her life to bring supplies to the hidden Jews and who rescued Anne's diary, was interviewed at age 86.

Gies has written and spoken publicly before, but Blair presents her in a fresh light. In one scene, she is shown in a first-time meeting with the son of one of the attic-dwellers.

Also interviewed are Anne's childhood playmates, who recall a playful, impertinent girl confident of eventual fame as a writer and yearning for the glamorous life of America's film stars.

Others, who themselves barely survived internment, recount the dark-eyed girl's descent into despair and illness during her last days of life in the harsh Bergen-Belsen camp in March 1945.

Her own diary passages tell of her brush with love with young Peter van Daan, whose family also sought refuge in the annex; her clashes with her family and insights into a world gone mad.

There is a wider view, as well. Otto Frank's barracks mates in Auschwitz, where he was imprisoned, tell of their struggle for survival amid casual evil.

One man, forced to stand nude in the winter chill, recalled the taunts of a fur coat-clad German soldier.

``Cold, eh?'' the soldier said. ``You know you will not survive this. You know that. But in case you will survive ... nobody, but nobody, will believe you, what we did to you people.''

Blair gained permission to briefly restore the now-empty hiding place - a major visitor attraction in Amsterdam - to its wartime appearance. He and his crew filmed at night to avoid interfering with public access.

He brushed closest to his subjects in the annex, Blair said.

``As I sat there at 5 o'clock in the morning in this place where Anne and Peter had sat, mooning away the hours some 50 years before ... I was surrounded by this high-tech camera equipment.

``It was a curious feeling, that one was in amongst ghosts. Yet there was something peculiarly appropriate about the memory of these people being commemorated with the most modern motion picture equipment, given Anne's expressed desire to be famous and go to Hollywood.''