Beautifully conveyed

Rating: 9/10 (4 June 2005)

Schindler's list is truly a excellent movie, not simply the way in which it is shot, but also the way it conveys exactly what it meant for one man to save a few lives.
Oskar Schindler, a Nazi industrialist, employs Jews and ultimately negotiates for their diversion from Auschwitz and into his factory. On the outset we are given the impression that he is merely a businessman, regarding the Jews as nothing more than money-making tools. But we are able to slowly learn that it is only by giving this cold-hearted impression to the Nazi officers he barters with that he could be successful - to simply fight the cause of the Jews would probably have seen him hanged. No, Schindler is cleverer than that, and manages to save the lives of over one thousand doomed Jews; men, women and children. His humanity slowly emerges throughout the film, sometimes in palpable acts of kindness such as insisting that the trains carrying Jews on a hot day are hosed with cooling water.
In stark contrast, the Nazi commandant in charge of the labour camp, Amon Goeth (Ralph Feinnes), is a psychotic killer whose methods of operation run to arbitrary killings and a total hatred of the Jew race. It is he who Schindler must befriend and gain trust from in order to save as many people as possible.
The film avoids simply documenting a piece of history that we have heard before. By focusing on a handful of personal experiences, an emotional anchor is provided for the audience with which we can go much deeper into the meaning of what is happening. The atrocities carried out principally by Amon Goeth and by other Nazi officers, which involve harrowing scenes of fear and suffering are integrated with the importance of recognising how important each individual person is. Whilst we see Goeth taking pot-shots at working Jews in the morning from his balcony, and thus demonstrating his total indifference to Jewish lives, we are shown Schindler, who at the end, weeps for every single life he couldn't save. This is manifested superbly by him looking at his gold pin badge: it would have bought him one more person to be saved.
And so we learn that Schindler's acts were not about numbers, since as his Jewish assistant reassures him, saving one life is saving everyone.