Black and White- yet no Grey.

Rating: 3/10 (13 August 1999)

I'm going to have to agree with a previous comment that 'people only liked this because it was seen as unwise' to objectively comment. This was a 'cause movie'- and as such is no better, or no worse, than the others. Like 'Amistad' that followed it, it's plodding, pretentious and badly shot. The black and white cinematography lends nothing to it except the illusion of reality; which it isn't: it's a film. It's a story. Not a documentary. It's a constructed series of events, with 'characters' and a 'narrative' and a 'script'. The fact that the holocaust-survivors laud it as 'how it was' is the ultimate expression of its failure. The novel left you thankful that you weren't there, but never once made you feel like you were. Spielberg's film tricks you into imagining that it shows how terrible the holocaust was- it doesn't. And can't.
Many have stated that they 'understand' the events of Hitler's Germany through the movie. By giving them this false 'understanding'; Spielberg has cheapened it, and made it more comfortable than it should be. Subjectively, for many, this grants them leave to display false, *constructed*, grief for something that no amount of 'grieving' can in any way come to terms with.
As a film; a piece of fictionalised narrative, it suffers from hammy performances... most obviously the ridiculous Ralph Fiennes with his sitcom nazi- a safe, comfortable idea; neatly slotting him into the 'bad guys' package that drama utilises, but 'real life' finds no easy place for.
A film shot in black and white that regrettably uses these absolutes in its storytelling. An effective parable? Perhaps. But a worrying one.
Steev