Powerful and moving if not exactly a fun night in!

Rating: Null/10 (23 March 2003)

As Nazi Germany invades Poland, opportunist Oscar Schindler sees a chance to open a factory serving the military and using Jews for labour. However, as the full horror of the war on the Jewish people becomes ever more clear, Schindler's selfishness turns more into compassion for his fellowman.
Having spent 10 weeks watching `Taken' and remembering just how awful Spielberg can be when he is being mushily sentimental, I revisited this film as it was showing in the build up to the TV coverage of the 2003 Oscar ceremony. It is a powerful film simply because Spielberg manages to keep the mush out of it and just let the events speak for themselves. When people are shot on the street there is no John Williams music or slow-motion, they simply fall in a bloody heap and the film moves on. This makes it shockingly cold and that is the aim.
The story is difficult to summarise because a surprising amount of it is spent away from the story of Schindler and on the plight of the Jews generally. Again this theme within the narrative stops to wandering and allows it to be impacting. True there is an element of `look what happened, isn't this terrible?' about it, but not too much. In the final hour in particular it gets a little sentimental but not to the point of spoiling things.
Neeson's Schindler makes you wonder why he wasn't able to get any character into his recent role in Star Wars I. Here he keeps Schindler a complex man, driven by a mix of selfishness and compassion but Spielberg simplifies him a bit towards the end (but I may be being a bit picky). Fiennes' Goeth is also wonderfully drawn. A cold blooded killer no doubt but also not painted without his own complexities and Fiennes holds the focus whenever he is onscreen. The support cast are all excellent right down to extras  if you think it is easy to scream and wail convincingly then you should compare this to Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones! I never doubted that any of the actors were anything but the characters they played.
Spielberg rightly won his Oscars for this and his direction is excellent. Although I do dislike him immensely when he goes all `apple pie' on us, he is great at what he does and this is one of his best films since Jaws. A powerful, moving film that is moving for all the right reasons and not just because John Williams cranks in. Difficult to watch but worth the effort.