Can we criticize this movie now?

Rating: 3/10 (2 March 2004)

I mean, has enough time passed? Or has the release of *Schindler's List* on DVD fueled a new hushed awe towards the picture?
Spielberg's critic-proof Holocaust film has several problems, the biggest of which is the way it turns a horrible real-life tragedy into a three-hanky melodrama. I continue to maintain that the Holocaust is generally unfilmable, in terms of what we might call a standard movie. Generally unfilmable, but not inevitably unfilmable. Off the top of my head, I can recommend two recent films on this subject: Francesco Rosi's *The Truce*, and Costa-Gavras' *Amen". Both films approach this material with far more nuance than Spielberg's film, which, I repeat, is weepy melodrama. (And as such, treads a fine line between reverence and tastelessness.) For that matter, Polanski's *The Pianist* gives us a more unique approach than what we get here, which is a movie that features a hero whom your average American multiplex popcorn-tub-muncher can easily identify with: a gregarious capitalist named Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) who, despite all the war-profiteering (read: "initiative"), turns out to have a heart of gold. Or marshmallow mush. Please don't bother pointing out that this is a "true story": those who've read the actual book by Thomas Kenneally on which the movie is based will be rather shocked by the movie's willingness to sacrifice verisimilitude for "dramatic license". The biggest example of this is the "villain" of the piece, SS-Kommandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes in a career-making performance). The screenplay ladles all sorts of Freudian syrup over this character, meaning: he's crazy as a loon. So much for the "banality of evil": instead, we get, via Fiennes' Method-y performance, a study in mere neurosis instead of a rigorous examination of the murderous pathology that's inherent in humanity. Spielberg can't resist having Herr Goeth develop a crush on one of his Jewish housemaids, and we get the requisite "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech, delivered with what is supposed to be irony by Fiennes. Then he beats the crap out of her. Change the plot particulars, and you've got your standard "Lifetime Channel" movie about an abusive husband.
Don't get me wrong, the film is not a total waste of time: even melodrama has cumulative virtues, and many of the scenes in *Schindler's List* are quite affecting, particularly the very last sequence in which the surviving "Schindler Jews" appear (in color), accompanied by the actors who portrayed them. They pay tribute to Schindler by laying stones on his grave. Moving stuff. Ben Kingsley, who portrays the worry-wart Itzhak Stern, must also receive special mention. And Spielberg's technical mastery is never open to question: this is one beautifully mounted film, impeccably photographed. The set-design, which is called upon to perform the daunting task of replicating Nazi labor camps and so forth, is beyond reproach. Proving that he's still the same guy who directed *Jaws*, Spielberg is able to send chills up our spines when a train full of Jewish women & girls is accidentally routed to Auschwitz: it's a night-scene, replete with a light-tower that approximates a beacon from Hell.
But, all-in-all, the movie remains an elementary approach to the Holocaust genre. It's tailor-made for desultory viewings by 12th-graders: "Hey mom, we learned about the Holocaust in class today." Nothing wrong with that, but aren't the kids better served by a FACTUAL documentary about this subject, rather than an Oscar-baited exercise in self-importance? You decide.