Representation misused

Rating: 1/10 (29 May 2006)

This is just another film like Amistad that Steven Spielberg thought might be important to put to film. But, after seeing a film like United 93, I feel that, going back to this film, I see it as exploitation. That it is exploiting the pain of the entire holocaust and the tragedy that it really was, and exploiting that for emotional reasons but worse, to give Oskar Shindler an opposite, and something to purify him from a narrative character perspective. It's not that I hate the film, it's well made in every aspect, but it is basically a Frank Capra picture set within a really huge tragedy. One character is not the hero or villain here, there is no black and white. Since it chooses to display the Holocaust so graphically, do it in a better way. But watching the film and contrasting it to what actually did happen, I have to wonder, is there a really truthful way of representing the Holocaust? It's such a monstrous tragedy, the big abomination of the 20th century, should it really be put onto film, and are the words now used to describe it, "Never Again", really a truthful representation? Is this how we want people to remember the Holocaust? Through a film that presents a hero struggling to be a capitalist and struggling to be a good man by Western standards by saving as many people as possible. If he had saved "one more" person, it wouldn't have mattered. The film is permanent, and the Holocaust itself is as well. I firmly believe this is not the appropriate way to depict something that actually happened and was so important. It's the singular voice of the director here, this film might as well by "It's A Wonderful Life", because that is essentially what it is. The same story, the same character arc for Shindler. It's just not appropriate and I think that the time has not come yet for us to truly be able to grasp the atrocity of the Holocaust. I believe the means of representation are not available for us or at our disposal.