SCHINDLER'S LIST
A film review by Reba M. Bandyopadhyay
Copyright 1993 Reba M. Bandyopadhyay
I just have to put my two bits in about SCHINDLER'S LIST. It moved me so powerfully that I can't keep silent about my opinions/comments. I am not normally a profoundly religious person, but I consider myself to be a good and reasonably observant Jew (reconstructionist/conservative), but this film produced in me some *strong* religious feelings. Apologies to anyone who is in any way offended by my references to people 'with or without faith', but I couldn't express my feelings about this film without discussing faith. Thanks in advance for indulging me. Posted or emailed responses welcomed.
I saw SCHINDLER'S LIST last night and I have to see it again, preferably several times in fact. There are no words for this film. All I can say is that if Spielberg doesn't get best director and the film doesn't get best picture, it will be a travesty unparalleled in the history of the Oscars, for then we will know that the Academy is too petty to overcome its prejudices and give an award to a man and a film that surpass all previous expectations. It was astonishing. This is going to be added to the list of films like NIGHT AND FOG and SHOAH that teachers inundate young Jewish children like me with in Sunday school, only this is better, because while those are only about the horror and plaintive cries of "if there is a God, how could he let this happen," SCHINDLER'S LIST is about the restoration of faith in God and/or in humanity in the midst of all that horror, as illustrated in the oh-so-subtle transformation of Schindler. Schindler is truly the brightest flame of all the heroes of Spielberg's movies, beautifully realized by Liam Neeson. The rest of the acting is also phenomenal. If you haven't seen it yet, run, don't walk to the theatre. I cried for about two hours *after* I got home, and found myself unable to do anything the rest of the night except sleep, and even then Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley were dancing through my dreams. Not entirely disagreeable, that, to say the least. If the Holocaust was cause for the Jews (or any other person with faith) to doubt the existence of God, the existence of Schindler shows us with faith that there is indeed a God. For all people, with or without religion, Schindler is a case-in-point example of the inherent goodness possible in humanity, and proof that no matter how many businesses Schindler failed in, he was a success in life: his magnum opus will be remembered by generations of people, especially those who would not exist without him. All I could think of during the movie was that it could *so easily* have been me that he saved ... like when at Passover we Jews are told to remember that God saved each and every one of us alive today by bringing us out of Egypt, so Schindler saved each of us personally also. "He who saves one life saves the whole world." I guess this is what it means to have a Jewish cultural/ethnic/ religious heritage ....
Lest we forget.
Reba Bandyopadhyay .
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews