Review 90: Schindlers List

Schindler's List is a mesmerising film and the best holocaust film ever made.

Based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, the film chronicles the events of the The Holocaust. During all the disaster, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a German businessman in Poland sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps.

The plot is so good it makes you want to cry. It beautifully portrays the actions of this one German who sacrifised all to save those from this monster: I mean millions of Polish jews lives were made miserable by these people and they were all about to be murdered  but Schindler was the only German with a heart who sacrafised everything to save them.
The cinematography is transfixing (its all shot in Black and White), the score by John Williams is beautiful, Steven Spielberg's directing is flawless, the costumes look so contemporary, the violence is brutal and gets the tone of the film right, the make up looks so realistic, the production design is impecable the sound mixing is stupendous the sceanery is breathtaking and the ending was beautiful

The acting was tremendous, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes are fabulous in their roles and the rest of the cast is excellent.

Steven Spielberg has made some the greatest movies out there and this and E.T. are by far his best and most important films of all time. What a phenomenal film, 5/5.

The Anonymous Critic