A necessary lesson.

Rating: 10/10 (24 August 2009)

I won't summarise the film or talk about its technical and artistic brilliance. It is a brilliant film which depicts WW2 as it was, not the sanitised versions we were used to seeing from the 50s onwards. But, to me, there is a more important lesson to be gained from this film...
I went to see this film in a suburban cineplex here in Australia. On the night there was a huge audience and a large group of teenagers who'd wandered in because the film they wanted to see had a full house (I overheard them saying this...). They were boisterous and noisy and sometimes obnoxious as kids can sometimes be at cinemas. But after the first five minutes of the film they were dead silent and they remained so for the rest of the film.
I looked at their faces as they exited the theatre at the end of the film. All were ashen-faced, drained...some clearly close to tears. I was happy about this because a film had hammered home to a bunch of modern kids the reality of war without them having to experience it first hand, thank God. All at once they learned that war is horrible, sometimes necessary and best avoided. I'm sure they learned to look at the elderly survivors of this time in human history with a new-found respect. In short, they grew up considerably and without any physical pain as a result of watching this masterful film. And for that, I thank Spielberg profusely. Bravo, Sir.