This terrible film has been canonized, granted diplomatic immunity and is completely immune to criticism

Rating: Null/10 (10 December 2016)

There are many problems with this film. Three major problems: it's a bad film and it's politically incorrect (to say the least), but I said three. The third problem is that the second problem (politics of the film) has overtaken the discussions of this "work of art" that we cannot discuss the former.
I don't want to discuss the politics or racial controversies in this film. It has been discussed to death and I have nothing new to add.
Even if it weren't racist/controversial, even if you see nothing wrong with any of the politics of the film, it's still a terrible film.
It doesn't stand up to many modern films, modern writing techniques, modern character development, modern storytelling, etc. This is partly unfair, it would be like "comparing cave paintings to Renaissance era masterpieces." Cinema was primitive, but it was not that primitive. A more fair comparison would be medieval art with early renaissance art. The problem is that this film (1939) does not stand up to films not made today (2016), but even films from the 60's.
It's not fair to compare this to modern films, but the unfairness is on modern films. This film is given a +5 star bonus on a 1-10 scale for being old.
La Grand Illusion, released a year before, is a better film. I have to mention this line because of the Gone With The Wind Defense League attacking anyone who disagrees with these lines:
1. You're just a Michael Bay fan. If a movie doesn't have explosions, you get bored very quickly. There's more to art than car chases. 2. You have a short attention span. 3. You want sex in films. You don't get films about family. 4. Millennials. Twitter-generation kids hate old stuff.
Etc. etc. I've heard it all.
I don't like Michael Bay's films, nor comic book films. I don't like action films all that much. I don't care for sex in films. If it adds to the story, good, if not, cut, cut, cut.
But that's the thing with this film. Cut is not a word they used off the set. It's 4 hours long for no reason. You could cut so much without affecting the story. It is needlessly long.
If someone were to make a 4-hour film with this exact script, critics would criticize the length, but this film gets a free pass because of it has the numbers "1939" next to its name.
The characters are one-dimensional and unrealistic. Forget backstory, some characters don't even have real names. There's no excuse for poor writing.
Sadly, the discussion of this film has been reduced to two sides: A: It's great, but it's racist. B: It's sucks because it's racist.
But the real thing is it just sucks (and it's racist.)
Cutting out all the racist stuff won't make this a better film.
Racial stereotypes are not just evidence of racism, but of poor writing. I've seen films that are more racist but were much better, had better characters, give depth, motives and personality to their characters, they aren't stereotypes, clichés and stock characters.
It's a 1930's soap opera - melodramatic, cheesy, insincere, ponderous and weak.
It's beautifully shot, and that's where the +1 comes from. Otherwise I'd give it a zero, which is not possible on this site.