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Schindler's List
Synopsis
The war finds businessman Oskar Schindler joining the Nazi party to make a profit. His dedication to the cause and his generous bribes see him rewarded with an enamelware plant in Krakow, whose employees are unpaid Jews. As time goes by the atrocities overwhelm Schindler, who is determined to protect his workers at all costs. Adapted from the novel by Thomas Keneally.
Review
Both an artistic and a commercial triumph, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's
List manages to find some small glimmer of hope for the human spirit amid
the abomination that was the Holocaust. The true story of flamboyant entrepreneur
Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and his attempts to save Jewish lives under
the very noses of his Nazi associates gives Spielberg a focal point of
conscience and humanity in an otherwise unrelentingly grim depiction of
mankind's worst traits, here memorably embodied by Ralph Fiennes as the
sadistic Nazi commandant Amon Goeth.
Spielberg's determined and unflinching vision is supported by a dignified
score from regular collaborator John Williams, and evocative black-and-white
cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, which alternates a semi-documentary
feel for the harrowing ghetto and concentration camp sequences with an
altogether more decadent sensibility for the Nazis. The single use of
colour tells of horror more shocking than any words could convey. It's
true that towards the end Spielberg lets his sentimental streak off the
leash when he chooses to focus on Schindler's grief, but otherwise this
is filmmaking of the highest kind: compellingly dramatic, profoundly educational,
and unfailingly emotive in the very best sense.
Languages
English