One of My Favorite Films

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2001)

I first saw Schindler's List on it's opening weekend. The theater was full. One of the most remarkable things I observed was the stone silence of the audience, I felt awkward just picking up my soda.
As a person who has a great deal of interest in the Holocaust and WWII in general and has been to both The Holocaust Museum in Washington and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I found this film realistic and deeply moving. For those who found the film 'boring' or yet another opportunity to question Spielberg's ability I am sorry that they missed a great movie.
The appeal of this film is that it is based on a true story. If this were not so, it would not be anywhere near the top ten as a movie. The power of this film comes from the fact that Oskar Schindler and his list actually existed. This powerful reality of 'Schindler's List' overrides the lack of whiz bang entertainment or the minutia of fine film making.
I judge a film by how I feel about it immediately afterward and again the next day. Normally, I stand up, grab my keys and get back to reality. In the case of Schindler's List I didn't shake it for a while, I wasn't even conversational for probably an hour.
I also would like to address the issue of the little girl in the red coat. The value, to me, in this twist was to point out that each death was a personal tragedy, that these were individuals, not merely faceless masses from a black and white documentary. If any of us sat and wondered about her individual story, even for a second, Spielberg was successful.
I will leave the analysis of character development, casting, and Spielberg himself to the pseudo-intellectuals who frequent this site, but to me Schindler's List was a powerful film.