Good, Evil and redemption

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2018)

Within the atrocity of the holocaust during the 40's, more than 6 million Jews were slaughtered; in very bloody war and tragic events, there was Schindler, a German Nazi businessman who, even in the middle of conflict of interest, has succeed to create a different connection with the victims. Schindler saw the victim as human, felt their pain and tried to do his best to save as many Jews as possible.
Schindler was a greedy war businessman who want to take advantage of the cheap Jewish labor to make fortune; he wasn't role model or hero for anyone; he was drinker and womanizer who wanted to hire Jewish labor at starvation wages; however, some events marked him during the war. Maybe among the most important elements of the story is how the filmmaker wanted to personalize each character, even victims. Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler) in the film developed a sort of friendship with his chief worker Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern). The ultimate turning point that got him involved and discovers his humanity is when he saw the dead body of girl with red coat among other kids slaughtered by Nazis; the image invaded his mind and awakens his emotions to turn into a savior. The girl with red coat was the center of attention even before she died as Spielberg wanted the audience to focus on her as an innocent scary kid full of life, the only colored character in the film; her death was felt by Schindler as the end of hope. Schindler then started to recruit as much worker as possible to save them from death, his mission wasn't to make profit anymore as it was started at the beginning, he established solid relationships with some Jewish workers and becomes a hope for many victims. The greedy guy who was capable to do everything to make money started to his workers as humans, feeling their pain, Oskar Schindler ended up broken, the only thing he kept was a list of people he saved, and he could have saved; full of regrets and sadness that he could have saved more but he didn't.
Schindler's List exhibits the good and the evil as theme, it also exhibits hope and redemption. The leader of the camp Ralph Fiennes (Amon Goethe) had another plot point elaborated in parallel with Schindler's story to portrait the atrocity and the cruelty of the Nazi regime, he is cold blooded killer who believes strongly in the Nazi ideology; but conflicted at the end by developing feelings towards Helen (Eberth Davidtz); she was his housekeeper, he beats her, slams her every time as his emotions were confronted between love of his mission as a Nazi and loving a Jewish girl; both were amazing and completed the roles, well played characters in all dimensions.
As mentioned before, the theme also touches redemption, another film with appropriateness of the theme is probably Valkyrie by Tom Cruise, another movie about soldier who collaborated with some of his superiors to kill Adolph Hitler, the character felt redemption after what happened at the war; the only solution to end the chaos is turn against his regime.
There are many techniques that made the movie personable, touchable and interesting to the viewers, but maybe the most important ones in my opinion are lighting, color and editing; the movie was black and white except for the beginning before the Nazis invade the town; the movie was grey to reflect the atrocity and loss of hope during the era, grey also was needed to exhibit explore the theme of evil which is represented by the misery and cruelty of life conditions of the Jewish people. The girl with red coat was the only colored character, a bullet to the audience heart who can't miss the scene, she was the turning point of Schindler; thus, the whole story. Editing was also a relevant technique to expose the contrast of two parallel world, the cruelty the Jews endure everyday with bullets in the head, starving to death and died in the cold contrasted with the luxury of Nazis' houses dancing with women around drinks. The were two scenes that contradict each other many times in the film.
What's amazing in this film is that, in many war movies, audience barely relates to the victims at the individual level, audience mainly feel the horror from the mass killing; this film however is different, Steven Spielberg exposed the victims and related them to the audience to feel them individually; he made a short story of each one differently, characters that we cannot ignore and forced to understand throughout the film, it made the movie so personalized to the audience.