Schindler's List Reviews

Businessman Oskar Schindler saved the lives of many Jews, by employing them in his factories, this saving them from going to The Concentration Camps.

This was, and will forever be, one of the best films ever made, not just the ultimate story of The Holocaust, but truly as masterpiece, one of the best.

If you can sit through it without being moved to the point of tears, you're made of stronger stuff than I am, the atrocities committed on those innocent people will never be forgotten. The realisation here is chilling.

The film's pacing is quite remarkable, it's a three hour film that flashes by quickly, but it's three hours that will live with you forever, some of the scenes will rightly never be forgotten.

What has always struck me, is the way that everything became normalised, people first losing their businesses, their homes, their freedom, and ultimately their lives, it is truly one of the bleakest points in human history, that's what this film details perfectly.

The Cinematography is incredible, it's understated, but perfect, fits the film perfectly, the sheer scale of it is so impressive. The scene with the little girl in the red coat has always been one of the standout moments.

No wonder it won a string of Oscars, the acting is outstanding throughout, I have always regarded this is Liam Neeson's best ever performance, but Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes are remarkable also.

It's a film that informs, moves, and makes you think in equal measures. If you think it's going to be too much, I'd say this, it is very upsetting at times, but it does also give some real glimpses of hope, the remarkable human spirit.

A jaw dropping, powerful movie, it's one of the best ever made.

10/10.

In Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.

Spielberg, unsure if he was ready to make a film about the Holocaust, tried to pass the project to several other directors before finally deciding to direct the film himself. Indeed, the biggest criticism the film gets is that it came from Spielberg, well known for his sentimentality. Had another director made the same film, it would probably be considered flawless.

One can wonder about the casting of Liam Neeson as a Moravian German, when he clearly is not. But with such a strong acting ability, this can be overlooked. The casting of Ben Kingsley was brilliant, even if he is not Jewish, and it is a shame this role is not the one he is best known for. Somehow Ralph Fiennes got a supporting actor nomination, but not Kingsley? The choice to film in black and white makes sense, as Spielberg wanted a "documentary" feel. Does the infusion of red take away from this? Some might say so.

This film racked up a slew of awards, including several Oscars, and this is well-deserved. Despite its critics, this will no doubt go on to be considered one of the greatest films of all time, and easily the best to address the Holocaust.

Es una de las películas más emotivas que he visto en mi vida (y que veré, muy probablemente). En ningún momento cae en pretenciones, ni melldramas forzados y cada uno de sus momentos sentimentales se sienten completamente orgánicos. De las dos o tres mejores películas que he visto sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial (si no es que la mejor) y eso es decir bastante. Recomendada para casi cualquier persona, pero con la advertencia de que es una cinta para contemplar tranquilamente, no la vean con su grupo de amigos bromistas.

La lista de Schindler, una de las consideradas mejores películas que se hayan hecho jamás, llena de un enorme prestigio que le valió a Spielberg mucho reconocimiento, y eso que ya habiendo sido un director muy afamado, ganadora de cientos de premios y siendo parte del top 10 relacionado con guerra y dramas fuertes de miles de personas. En fin, una obra que todo el mundo debe ver si se considera fan del cine. Pero bueno, fuera de parloteos acerca de lo mucho que la gente se la mama, veamos que tan meritorio es dicha descripción.

Trata sobre un empresario alemán que salvó la vida de 1100 judíos del holocausto. El film consiste en mostrar las distintas experiencias que pasaron unos cuantos de esos judíos durante tal evento. Además de mostrar como Schindler observa cosas terribles que ocurrieron en aquel entonces. Ya desde el vamos debería darte la impresión de que será un drama bélico retratando una tragedia relacionada con temas etno-raciales, como hotel rwanda o parecidos. Pues al contrario parece que es más una escusa para mostrar como muchas personas random son horrorosamente asesinadas y torturadas y reiterar como le sacan la mierda a los judíos.

Empezando por lo mas importante, los personajes, joder, no sé quien tuvo la brillante idea de tener muchos, a cada momento salta de un lado a otro con distintas personas las cuales nunca llegamos a conocer bien. Salvo quien, Schindler, Stern, o Goeth los demás personajes ni siquiera son bien presentados, solo llegan como si nada para que algo mórbido les pase por acción de los nazis o lo observen. Así es toda la película, los nazis se burlan de un judío cortándole las patillas, los nazis deportan a miles a un ghetto, los nazis ejecutan a x persona por ser judía, ejecutan a este otro por lo mismo. De seguro dirán que me estoy quejando por algo que obviamente va a pasar, pero el punto es que no doy un carajo por esta gente. Nunca tuve una razón para hacerlo más que por su sufrimiento, es como ver Rainbow en blanco y negro, escenario rudo y tétrico en donde le sacan la mierda a la gente mientras no hacen nada al respecto. Todos los judios aquí son identicos, temerosos, debiluchos, sumisos, etc. Entiendo por lo que están pasando, pero por que no hacen algo?

Los otros personajes también tienen la misma “personalidad” los unos con los otros, es como si todos los que no son judíos en esta película fuesen unos imbeciles que los odian a muerte porque sí. Y bueno, podrían decir que de esa manera fue, pero de todos modos, quien es tan imbécil como para odiar a muerte a una persona porque si? Ah, me dirán que los nazis eran unos racistas y por eso los querían exterminar, sigue siendo absurdo, los ejecutan como si jugaran al GTA, y no me salgan con que es parte de su trabajo, hacer una matanza es algo que pocos pueden hacer y disfrutar, si han visto FMA sabrán lo que digo, hacer este tipo de cosas es algo que traumaría de por vida a muchos de sus orquestadores. Al parecer se olvidaron explorar las motivaciones de los malos, y se queda en los nazis son unos sádicos enfermos. No serán porque es parte de su entrenamiento o algún tipo de adoctrinamiento? Pues que lastima que no hayan ni mencionado tal cosa, y en caso de que sea verdad, quienes son los instructores? Demonios? Porque llegan a tal nivel de maldad caricaturesca y exagerada como reírse de una pila de miles de cadáveres exhumados y descompuestos siendo quemados, y dispararles por entretenimiento. Pero que hay de los que no son nazis? No hay mucha diferencia, en algunas escenas incluso muestran a niños eslavos burlándose y atormentado a los judíos, parece que los maestros y representantes de la prole son los mismos que volvieron a los nazis unas caricaturas.

En cuanto a los que tienen algo de personalidad, Schindler tiene un poco de desarrollo dejando de ser un mujeriego a un ultra filantropico samaritano que se fue a la quiebra por ayudar a los judíos, no estaría mal si no fuese por lo meloso que puede llegar a ser, como en el final cuando se pone a llorar desaforadamente por un montón de gente que ni siquiera conocía. Goeth es idéntico a los demás nazis, aunque a veces si que comete actos ridículos para que veamos lo malo que es, como ejecutar a 25 personas para traumatizar a un tipo aleatorio que ni sé quien es o disparar a un niño por no quitar unas manchas de su ducha, está matando a su mano de obra, quien es tan idiota como para matar a sus esclavos?. Stern pues, meh, es serio y distante con Schindler en un inicio y luego de hacen amigos y ya, es idéntico al resto de los judíos en casi toda la película.

Algo que en verdad me parece extraño es la manera en como muchos judíos logran sobrevivir, a uno que le intentan ejecutar y sobrevivió porque las armas de los oficiales extrañamente dejaron de funcionar, o cuando uno se salvo solo por fingir que estaba trabajando, o porque era un mecánico, vaya parece que los personajes que son testigos pueden salvar de situaciones tan apretadas, las cuales casi todo el mundo moriría de estar en una situación similar, a pesar de los muchos que murieron por lo mismo. Como es posible que ellos se hayan salvado y el resto no? Porque parece que con un poco de cerebro hasta hubiesen derrotado a los nazis.

Volviendo con la estructura, es bastante caótica. Salta de una situación a otra sin tener algo fijo que contar en muchas ocasiones, producto de que intenta enfocarse en tantas cosas las cuales muchas son hasta reiterativas. No es que no haya algo mínimamente rescatable de todos modos, los segmentos en donde Schindler empieza a comerciar con mucha gente y ves la manera en como crece su negocio y como se manejaban los judíos para ganar dinero fueron sin duda algo interesante. Que desgracia que apenas sean los primeros 30 minutos y el resto son como 2 horas y media de ver atrocidades random.

Y ya que hablo de ello, esto no es parte de la critica pero, esta película es considera como R, pero casi todo el mundo le da una calificación de entre 13 o incluso algunos países es apta para todo publico. Lo cual no tiene sentido, esta pelicula es de las mas violentas en ganar el oscar, con muchas escenas de matanzas con litros y litros de sangre despilfarradas y cientos de cadáveres amontonándose, niños y ancianos incluidos, con un monton de escenas de desnudez y sexo muy explicito, incluso en una escena ponen a un montón de adultos y viejos a correr desnudo en medio del lodo sin nada de censura. Recuerdo incluso haber visto esta cosa en pleno dia y decía apta para todo publico, completamente uncut.

Entonces por que la consideran una obra maestra si posee un drama tan vacío y exagerado, simple, por la presentación, que sí, incluso en este aspecto puede ser manipulador, como la escena de a niña de traje rojo que solo la pusieron ahí para horrorizar al espectador, pero es verdad que es una película muy bien lograda, es Steven Spielberg el que la dirigió después de todo. El sujeto se las apañó para que las escenas por muy exageradas que sean logren causar inquietud y angustia, parte porque logró coordinar a cientos de actores para que se muevan constantemente y que no pierdas la atención de la pantalla por lo realista que se ve, además de la representación tanto de los campos de concentración o las calles que te transportan a esa era, y sumado al uso de la cámara en mano que muchas veces desestabiliza la imagen da la sensación de caos e indefensión que quiere que sientas, parecido a como lo hizo en saving the private ryan. La fotografía tiene mucho que ver también, con el uso del blanco y el negro no solo hace que todo se vea mas sombrío y decrepito, a la vez hace que se vea mas original la imagen, que junto los simbolismos visuales de los colores pues si que es muy distintivo, además incluso hoy en día se ve mejor que casi todas las películas que haya visto. La música va por lo mismo, es muy memorable, te escuchas la melodía principal y ya sabes que es de la peli, y el resto de la banda sonora es tan variada que queda con todo, desde los momentos mórbidos hasta los tristes

Y bueno, sé que muchos me saldrán que esta película es histórica y ese tipo de cosas y por ende todo lo que pasó es verdadero, claro, si ignoramos que muchos de los eventos narrados son solo testimonios, los cuales pueden ser fácilmente manipulables a conveniencia. Pero sigue siendo histórico, esa no es una escusa, es al igual que el renacido, donde te puede atacar un oso, estar a 5 grados centígrados o menos o caer de un desfiladero entre otras hazañas y puedes sobrevivir. Y bueno, si vamos por ese camino, donde están los polacos o los presos políticos? Que no se supone que deberían haber estado también en campos de concentración?

En fin, la lista de Schindler es una obra maestra? Pues depende, si hablamos de dirección, pues es un hecho, es una obra maestra, pero si la evalúo como un todo lo que te queda es una película con buena música y visuales, y un montón de porno tortura disfrazada de historia. En todo caso, mejor vean la vida es bella, no es una obra maestra pero al menos tiene un cast fijo de personajes por los que llegas a conocer e preocuparte, con un mensaje mas claro, con villanos que no matan a diestra y siniestra porque si y mejor drama

Tres horas de sufrimiento, crudeza, tristeza, pero sobre todo, esperanza.
Mientras mas avanza la película se muestra mas el sufrimiento de los judíos de forma intercalada con como Oskar se compadece de su sufrimiento, su exagerada crudeza no se siente ni exagerada ni manipuladora y como la muestran frente a Oskar explica su cambió. La crueldad mostrada en la película no solo se basa en imágenes, si no en el significado de estas, especialmente en el comportamiento de los nazis al matar judíos sin tener repercusiones en su persona, algo que se refleja principalmente en Amón goeth. Claro, tiene errores, se desvía mucho de su trama principal y al principio se siente que las escenas no conectan entre si, se puede sentir que las escenas se alargan, entre otras cosas.
Podría hablar mucho de esta pero es solo una pequeña critica, así que aqui lo dejo

You can't hate 'Schindler's List', no way, no how! Steven Spielberg directs one of the best movies of all time 'Schindler's List', a detailed well told masterpiece about Oskar Schindler; here he's played by Liam Neeson who gives one of the top spot performances of all time! As do co-stars Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes! 

'Schindler's List' has gorgeous cinematography, amazing music, stunning sets, visionary direction and Neeson's showcase acting! It's one of the ten best movies ever! If you hate this movie then you have poor taste!

Perhaps the greatest argument for the sincerity and dedication Steven Spielberg put into Schindler's List is how radical a departure it was for the artist. Schindler's List is not the first film to showcase Spielberg's aesthetic mastery within the confines of more serious-minded narrative ambition, but where The Color Purple used too many tricks to tell its story and Empire of the Sun eased up on the director's visual skills for its cynical but affecting humanism, Schindler's List finds the balance. I would never presume to say the film captures even a fraction of the Holocaust; it is instead what Stanley Kubrick labeled it, not a film about six million who died but 1,000 who lived. It is worth telling the good stories with the bad; they deepen our understanding of mankind's darkest hour.

There is a real photographic record of some of the people and places depicted in "Schindler's List," and it has a haunting history. Raimund Titsch, an Austrian Catholic who managed a uniform factory within the Plaszow labor camp in Poland, surreptitiously took pictures of what he saw. Fearful of having the pictures developed, he hid his film in a steel box, which he buried in a park outside Vienna and then did not disturb for nearly 20 years. Although it was sold secretly by Titsch when he was terminally ill, the film remained undeveloped until after his death.

The pictures that emerged, like so many visual representations of the Holocaust, are tragic, ghostly and remote. The horrors of the Holocaust are often viewed from a similar distance, filtered through memory or insulated by grief and recrimination. Documented exhaustively or dramatized in terms by now dangerously familiar, the Holocaust threatens to become unimaginable precisely because it has been imagined so fully. But the film "Schindler's List," directed with fury and immediacy by a profoundly surprising Steven Spielberg, presents the subject as if discovering it anew.

"Schindler's List" brings a pre-eminent pop mastermind together with a story that demands the deepest reserves of courage and passion. Rising brilliantly to the challenge of this material and displaying an electrifying creative intelligence, Mr. Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again. With every frame, he demonstrates the power of the film maker to distill complex events into fiercely indelible images. "Schindler's List" begins with the sight of Jewish prayer candles burning down to leave only wisps of smoke, and there can be no purer evocation of the Holocaust than that.

A deserted street littered with the suitcases of those who have just been rounded up and taken away. The look on the face of a captive Jewish jeweler as he is tossed a handful of human teeth to mine for fillings. A snowy sky that proves to be raining ashes. The panic of a prisoner unable to find his identity papers while he is screamed at by an armed soldier, a man with an obviously dangerous temper. These visceral scenes, and countless others like them, invite empathy as surely as Mr. Spielberg once made viewers wish E.T. would get well again.

But this time his emphasis is on the coolly Kafkaesque aspects of an authoritarian nightmare. Drawing upon the best of his storytelling talents, Mr. Spielberg has made "Schindler's List" an experience that is no less enveloping than his earlier works of pure entertainment. Dark, sobering and also invigoratingly dramatic, "Schindler's List" will make terrifying sense to anyone, anywhere.

The big man at the center of this film is Oskar Schindler, a Catholic businessman from the Sudetenland who came to occupied Poland to reap the spoils of war. (You can be sure this is not the last time the words "Oscar" and "Schindler" will be heard together.) Schindler is also something of a cipher, just as he was for Thomas Keneally, whose 1982 book, "Schindler's List," marked a daring synthesis of fiction and fact. Reconstructing the facts of Schindler's life to fit the format of a novel, Mr. Keneally could only draw upon the memories of those who owed their lives to the man's unexpected heroism. Compiling these accounts (in a book that included some of the Titsch photographs), Mr. Keneally told "the story of the pragmatic triumph of good over evil, a triumph in eminently measurable, statistical, unsubtle terms."

The great strength of Mr. Keneally's book, and now of Mr. Spielberg's film, lies precisely in this pragmatism. Knowing only the particulars of Schindler's behavior, the audience is drawn into wondering about his higher motives, about the experiences that transformed a casual profiteer into a selfless hero.

Schindler's story becomes much more involving than a tale of more conventional courage might be, just as Mr. Spielberg's use of unfamiliar actors to play Jewish prisoners makes it hard to view them as stock movie characters (even when the real events that befall these people threaten to do just that). The prisoners' stories come straight from Mr. Keneally's factual account, which is beautifully recapitulated by Steven Zaillian's screenplay.

Oskar Schindler, played with mesmerizing authority by Liam Neeson, is unmistakably larger than life, with the panache of an old-time movie star. (The real Schindler was said to resemble George Sanders and Curt Jurgens.) From its first glimpse of Oskar as he dresses for a typically flamboyant evening socializing with German officers -- and even from the way his hand appears, nonchalantly holding a cigarette and a bribe -- the film studies him with rapt attention.

Mr. Neeson, captured so glamorously by Janusz Kaminiski's richly versatile black-and-white cinematography, presents Oskar as an amalgam of canny opportunism and supreme, well-warranted confidence. Mr. Spielberg does not have to underscore the contrast between Oskar's life of privilege and the hardships of his Jewish employees.

Taking over a kitchenware factory in Cracow and benefiting from Jewish slave labor, Oskar at first is no hero. During a deft, seamless section of the film that depicts the setting up of this business operation, Oskar is seen happily occupying an apartment from which a wealthy Jewish couple has just been evicted. Meanwhile, the film's Jews are relegated to the Cracow ghetto. After the ghetto is evacuated and shut down, they are sent to Plaszow, which is overseen by a coolly brutal SS commandant named Amon Goeth.

Goeth, played fascinatingly by the English stage actor Ralph Fiennes, is the film's most sobering creation. The third of its spectacularly fine performances comes from Ben Kingsley as the reserved, wary Jewish accountant who becomes Oskar's trusted business manager, and who at one point has been rounded up by Nazi officers before Oskar saves him. "What if I got here five minutes later?" Oskar asks angrily, with the self-interest that keeps this story so startling. "Then where would I be?"

As the glossy, voluptuous look of Oskar's sequences gives way to a stark documentary-style account of the Jews' experience, "Schindler's List" witnesses a pivotal transformation. Oskar and a girlfriend, on horseback, watch from a hilltop as the ghetto is evacuated, and the image of a little girl in red seems to crystallize Oskar's horror.

But there is a more telling sequence later on, when Oskar is briefly arrested for having kissed a young Jewish woman during a party at his factory. Kissing women is, for Oskar, the most natural act in the world. And he is stunned to find it forbidden on racial grounds. All at once, he understands how murderous and irrational the world has become, and why no prisoners can be safe without the intervention of an Oskar Schindler.

The real Schindler saved more than a thousand Jewish workers by sheltering them in his factory, and even accomplished the unimaginable feat of rescuing some of them from Auschwitz. This film's moving coda, a full-color sequence, offers an unforgettable testimonial to Schindler's achievement.

The tension in "Schindler's List" comes, of course, from the omnipresent threat of violence. But here again, Mr. Spielberg departs from the familiar. The film's violent acts are relatively few, considering its subject matter, and are staged without the blatant sadism that might be expected. Goeth's hobby of playing sniper, casually targeting his prisoners with a high-powered rifle, is presented so matter-of-factly that it becomes much more terrible than it would be if given more lingering attention.

Mr. Spielberg knows well how to make such events truly shocking, and how to catch his audience off guard. Most of these shootings are seen from a great distance, and occur unexpectedly. When it appears that the film is leading up to the point-blank execution of a rabbi, the director has something else in store.

Goeth's lordly balcony, which overlooks the film's vast labor-camp set, presents an extraordinary set of visual possibilities, and Mr. Spielberg marshals them most compellingly. But the presence of huge crowds and an immense setting also plays to this director's weakness for staging effects en masse. "Schindler's List" falters only when the crowd of prisoners is reduced to a uniform entity, so that events no longer have the tumultuous variety of real life.

This effect is most noticeable in Schindler's last scene, the film's only major misstep, as a throng listens silently to Oskar's overwrought farewell. In a film that moves swiftly and urgently through its three-hour running time, this stagey ending -- plus a few touches of fundamentally false uplift, most notably in a sequence at Auschwitz -- amounts to a very small failing.

Among the many outstanding elements that contribute to "Schindler's List," Michael Kahn's nimble editing deserves special mention. So does the production design by Allan Starski, which finds just the right balance between realism and drama. John Williams's music has a somber, understated loveliness. The soundtrack becomes piercingly beautiful as Itzhak Perlman's violin solos occasionally augment the score.

It should be noted, if only in passing, that Mr. Spielberg has this year delivered the most astounding one-two punch in the history of American cinema. "Jurassic Park," now closing in on billion-dollar grosses, is the biggest movie moneymaker of all time. "Schindler's List," destined to have a permanent place in memory, will earn something better.

Since I heard so many good things about this movie, I was really curious to check it out. Even if Steven Spielberg has definitely made many very entertaining flicks in the past , I always had been kind of annoyed by his movies because they are most of the times not challenging enough, or too "nice" for my taste (For example, 'ET' is a good movie but the alien and the children tend to get on my nerves and the music is pretty cheesy). However, with this movie, Spielberg finally displayed his skills showing a terribly bleak and dark tale. Of course, you could say that Schindler is a little too heroic but you can't argue that Amon Goethe is one of the most despicable and yet fascinating bad guys seen on the silver screen. The directing was great, the cast (Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes) was awesome and the story was completely heartbreaking. It was so good that the Academy finally HAD to give Spielberg his Oscar which he had been denied for so many years. Anyway, to conclude, it is a great classic and a must see for any decent movie fan, especially if you are interested in Spielberg's work.

Many movies come out each year and we applaud them for their screen play, orginality and whatever else we can say about a movie. But only once in a long while does one come out and you say all those nice things, but one you will also never forget. This movie is more than just something for us to watch for 3 hours and 17 minutes, it is something for us to never forget, to teach us a lesson and to remember those who died needlessly along with those who tried to help those same people survive.