A much needed masterpiece in an age of commercial crap

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2000)

I wasn't too sure about renting this movie. I delayed picking it up primarily because it is a foreign film. I've always felt that the critics were kinder to foreign movies for whatever reason. This is one instance where the critics gave worthy praise.
The spirit of the movie is alive with Chaplin-eque magic. Almost a combination of "The Great Dictator" and "The Kid" (Charlie Chaplin's NOT the Bruce Willis movie). The lighthearted set up during the first half of the movie is needed to further the plot in the second half of the movie. The humor is over-the-top, but thankfully, the drama isn't. The film maker could have decided to be very heavy handed and force the audience to cry. He did not. I commend him for completely braking away from traditional movie formulas.
It wasn't necessary to shove the pain and suffering of the holocaust down our throats. Many other film makers have already done that. We know it was horrible. The entire point of the movie was to show courage in an unusual way not to showcase barbarism. This whole film had a freshness about it and yet it seemed a throwback to the golden age of movies.
Probably one of the best movies in the 1990s due largely to its unique approach of frightening times.