Schindler’s List tells the tale of a German industrialist Oskar
Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) who was credited with saving over
1,100 Jews during the Holocaust.
The movie is based on the book Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally.
Steven Spielberg both directed and produced this movie, and it has been
widely received as a classic.
The thing that catches your eye when watching this movie is the cruelty of war
itself. There are mainly losers, no winners, only those who happen to be in
between that suffer, while the men behind it sit behind a desk. Spielberg
depicted such cruelty in the camps.
A scene where a Jew who made hinges was moved from where he was working
to go shove coal, and when he returned, Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) queried him
for not meeting up to his regular toll of hinges and immediately had him
executed for something that was not his fault. That scene touched me.
The movie was shot in Kraków, Poland for seventy-one days. Shots were done on real-life locations, though the Płaszów camp had to be reconstructed in a pit adjacent to the original site due to post-war changes to the original camp.
The plot of the movie is direct. A German businessman named Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) in Poland sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using bribes to win military contracts, and brings in an accountant and financier, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), to help run the factory.
He then hires Jews for cheap pay, but later, after witnessing the cruelty they face in the Nazi camps, he tries to get as many Jews away from the camps to his factory, using all his savings to take care of them.
The movie is not so bad when it comes to acting, but the main hat dipping should go to the screenplay and the directing. The screenplay and script had to be perfect for us to get the real feel of what the Jews were going through. The directing had to be top-notch so as not to get carried away by the suffering or the cruelty, but to understand why a German would risk everything to save Jews.
The movie, as magnificent as it is, is very long, and the challenges faced by many of the characters over this movie runtime can be emotionally exhausting. Also, some viewers may have issues with the pacing, and there are scenes which I feel could have been shortened, especially the detailed depictions of life in the camps. I do not want to delve too much into the historical accuracy, but I feel a lot of the issues raised here are simplified to make it easier for viewers to enjoy.
Although we know that much has been done by Liam Neeson (Taken (2008)), Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter), and Ben Kingsley (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) over the years, they will be fondly remembered for their roles in this classic.
Take a 3-hour break from your busy schedule and watch this movie. It is one of a kind.
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