The tragedy is in superficiality and nonsense

Rating: 2/10 (22 February 1999)

Being offended or not by the way the Holocaust is depicted in this movie is a matter which belongs to a person's feeling, and nobody has the right to judge other's feelings. Sure, I would not like to be a Holocaust survivor and to be forced to watch this movie, because I would be probably deeply offended.
Personally I was hurt by the extreme superficiality and by the several nonsenses which create really unbelievable situations. In the movie the tragedy is deliberately turned into a tale, from a father to a son, for the psychic survival of the child. But the fiction of the "game" must be confined to the child eyes, and not extended to the whole scenario of the camp. In this way, the show is irritating. From a mere artistic point of view, the movie is not very well directed and acted. Ideas are "old", gags on Nazis, on their way to speak and march, are boring and annoying. Once again, Nazis are shown mostly as stupid and their behaviour arouses mirth. Tragically, they were not !
The great success of the movie in U.S. is amazing. I only hope that young people, facing for the first time this page of our History, will prefer to read books and watch documentaries or, if they like modern movies, Spielberg's "Schindler's List".
P.S. Please, do not compare with Chaplin's "The great Dictator" (1940) ... that was conceived and produced DURING the WWII and not 57 years after!