rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1993
Directed by Steven Spielberg; produced by Steven Spielberg, Branko Lustig, Gerald R. Molen; screenplay by Steve Zaillian
Starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall, Embeth Davidtz
'Schindler's List' is one of the true masterpieces made in the nineties. On an emotional level few films have touched me more. When it comes to films dealing with the Holocaust, only 'The Pianist' touched me on the same level. It is some kind of miracle how a director can deliver both popcorn entertainment and serious cinema as good as Steven Spielberg does it. After all, in the same year he made 'Jurassic Park'.
The film tells the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) who saves 1100 Polish Jews in WW II. At first he is just using them for his factory as cheap labor, but after he has seen some of the Nazi horrors he really wants to help them. He hires a Jewish bookkeeper named Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) and tries to save as many as possible from deportation. While telling Schindler's story Spielberg shows the horrors of the Holocaust. We go inside a prison camp with sadistic camp leader Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes, as pure evil), see how a the ghetto is emptied by the Nazis, visit Auschwitz. The incredible story of Schindler and his Jews grabs you by the throat and never lets go.
Not only is it great for the story it tells, also on a technical level it comes close to perfection. Mostly filmed in black and white the cinematography is beautiful. Color is used very effective. The little girl in red, filmed in red, will be remembered. Spielberg's direction is perfect as well, as is the heartbreaking music by great composer John Williams. The performances are flawless, especially Fiennes as the sadistic Goeth finds the perfect creepy note.
I have two very, very small objections. The first is the language. For some reason it bothers me the first moments of a film, especially with this kind, when the characters are speaking English instead of their real language. When they speak English with accents, I think, is just strange, but maybe that's because I am European. I mean, they did not speak English, but they definitely did not speak English with accents. The other small objection comes only after a comparison with that other great Holocaust film, 'The Pianist'.
'The Pianist', from Holocaust survivor Roman Polanski, understands that if you survived as a Jew it was because of luck. It tells a story about one Jew, lucky under the circumstances, making it a very personal film. Most Jews in 'Schindler's List' are lucky too, but the film has a hero with Oskar Schindler, therefore it tells a heroic story. Spielberg is good enough a director not to present it as that, but there are some small details that show us what the director thinks of this man. Schindler is great, no doubt about it, but his life alone is enough to understand that, we don't need certain small cinematographic tricks for that. The individual here is not one of the Jews, but Schindler, and therefore the film is about him. This is not really a problem, but concerning the Holocaust, I prefer a personal story about a Jew, a member of the people with the biggest problems (to use an understatement).
Again, this last objection is a result of watching 'The Pianist'. I am not sure which of the two is the better film, probably because they are so different. One of them tells a Holocaust story from the inside, from the point of view of a surviving Jew. It is very impressive, personal and on a technical level as good as 'Schindler's List', maybe even better directed. But it also tells the story of just one man and his luck, basically an understatement on itself. Spielberg's film tells a Holocaust story from the point of view of a man who, at least at the beginning, has nothing to fear and is therefore less personally involved. But then again, in the first place the film is a biography and in that way it succeeds better than any other biography I have seen. It is better than 'Lawrence of Arabia', 'Gandhi', 'Amadeus' and 'Goodfellas', just to name a few classics. Come to think of it, 'The Pianist' is also a biography. Equally great, both must-sees.