Underground hero: a young refugee (Milla Bankowicz) with Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz)

PHOTO BY JASMIN MARLA DICHANT

But for such a long, oppressive, and literally dark film, this one passes quickly, maintaining tension as well as a palpable physical discomfort that doubtlessly suggests just a fraction what the refugees actually suffered. On rare instances when Socha or others venture outdoors, sunlight feels as harsh and exposing as bleach.

In Darkness isn't quite a great movie, but it's a powerful experience. At the end it's impossible to be unmoved, not least because the director's resistance toward Spielbergian exaltation insists on the banal and everyday, even in human triumph.

In Darkness opens Fri/24 in San Francisco.