Moving

Rating: 9/10 (19 August 2014)

I am probably still too young to understand the real reasons why SL is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. It was mostly shot in black and white while virtually all other movies in the decades before and since are in colour, adding even more of a sense of realism to the film. Schindler's List is a story of a man's change of heart and attitude alongside themes of survival, hope, brutality (mostly served by Ralph Fiennes' murderous Amon Goth)and countless other situations for hundreds of Jews. In black and white, the bloody, graphic summary executions of Jews throughout the film were overwhelming, the images freezing me in my seat and imprinting themselves in my mind to this day, but they justifiably implied to you the horrors of the Holocaust like no other movie. The girl in the red coat seems to symbolise, as her fate suggests, that there is no escape from the dominant force. The acting is spotless. Liam Neeson should have won an Oscar for portraying Schindler (I must admit, I am yet to see Tom Hanks in Philadelphia) with an emotional tone, the performance launching him into super-stardom once and for all. Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes also played their parts with the right touch, especially Fiennes whose character also seems to change within, halfway through the film, but only slightly, his insanity still alive as in one scene he randomly snipes numerous Jewish workers from his bedroom. But the star is director Steven Spielberg, who in 1993 made maybe not his most famous movie, other projects such as E.T., Saving Private Ryan, CEOTTK, the Indiana Jones saga also rising forward. But without question, maybe with the exception of Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List is Spielberg's finest work.