A Powerful Stunning Horrifying Movie

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2001)

How people can call this movie 'horrible' or rate it with 1 star is really beyond me. If ever a movie has captured the cruelty and inhumanity of the holocaust this is it. Horrifying scenes such as a woman being shot to death for construction mistakes that weren't her fault, a man taken out to be killed but the gun won't fire and has to hear the officer try to see what the problem is so that he can shoot. And so many many more scenes that will stay in your mind for a long long time.
I didn't cry in this movie. I haven't cried in a movie since I was a kid. But this movie had a huge impact on me that when I went to sleep the night I saw this movie the images kept rolling in my mind (quite like the impact the botched execution scene in The Green Mile had on me).
I saw a review before me (a few pages back) which said that Israeli people are probably the most aware about the Holocaust. But I don't believe that's true. At least not to the younger generation. One of the huge mistake people make (including many many Israelis) is that the Holocaust was only against Jews. I personally find it a disgrace that the Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel and the famed Holocaust Museum in Israel "Yad Va Shem" refer only to the figure 6,000,000. When over 11,000,000 people fell victim to the crimes of the Nazis. But hey I'm rambling here. I think this movie definitely captures the torture that the Holocaust victims had to go through.
The movie is in black and white, with only one girl in a red dress who is shown trying to save her life from the Nazis by hiding under a bed. We later see this same girl's body taken to be burned- showing us that she obviously didn't survive. That got to me most. I don't think much of Steven Spielberg as a person. In fact I don't even think that much of him as a director but he did a magnificent job on this movie. I'm, sure that it will become one of the most well remembered movies of all time. People know the figures, the numbers, the years but to see it for yourself just makes you feel so happy that you were not a Jew/Gypsy/Black/Homosexual/Deformed/Handicaped/Left-Handed/Communist, etc. at that time. I think everyone should see this movie.

Although I think it is the most powerful movie ever made, and deserves the number one spot on the IMDb top 250 (over The Godfather, and The Shawshank Redemption) it's not a movie I would see multiple times. Perhaps once a year when it's shown on Holocaust Memorial Day, and even that can be to much. It's the type of movie that it's enough to see once and sticks in your mind. 10/10.