FILM REVIEW: Schindler's List (1993)

‘Schindler’s list’ (1993)

AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT

DIRECTED BY: Stephen Spielberg

STARRING:   Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley

I learned two things tonight: one, that when I write my reviews, the fewer words I use, chances are the better the film. And after watching Schindler’s List for the first time tonight, I learned something else: you don’t touch the Holocaust.

You can make a WWII dogfight action movie in Red Tails, or the most dramatic battle scenes in  Saving Private Ryan, you can make an HBO mini-series in The Pacific, you can compile lost war footage from WWII…

But you don’t. Touch. The Holocaust.

No matter what you do, any missed steps in filmmaking can damn you by an entire Jewish generation or culture. But Spielberg (a Jew himself) dared to go deep, away from his usual hansy-pansy science fiction, into the red of filmmaking. And after waking up and coming back to reality, I went to my laptop and typed.

Now like I usually do, after viewing a film for the first time, I do abit of research to see what I missed, or production and reactions. And then I noticed a complaint from a French director, Claude Lanzmann, and how this was all a clichéd, Hollywooded drama. His film, Shoah, is a 10-hour film that consists mostly of interviews. While I can’t say much about it, and seeing as how I haven’t seen this 10-hour film… this sounds like a film about interviews and recounts from survivors.

Spielberg made a film with actors, sound effects, scenery, props, and a modern film-camera and filmtape. And my body is shuttering like it’s never, or will never, shuttered before. You’ll forget this was filmed in 4:3 B&W, or the white text that can mix in with the scenes and can make reading them confusing, or even a few typical Spielberg touches. In fact, you’ll forget the world even exists. Because nothing about the Holocaust, nothing in cinema, will petrify your body to your seat and turn your eyes to glass like Schindler’s List.

☆☆☆☆

- Ant