A good film, but not good enought...

Rating: Null/10 (3 April 2002)

Given the magnitude of the events the film portrays I think simply being a good film is not enough. The acting, for the main characters at least, is good, the shooting is fine, the script isn't too sentimental or cheesy, the music is good and suitable, and so on...but this is not a film about two guys who wake up not being able to remember where they parked their car, this should be better. Too many people praise this film simply because it is about the holocaust, and not because they've ever sat down and thought about it as a thing in itself (nor have they probably given any thought to the nature of the holocaust, beyond what they 'learn' from films such as this). These same people, some who go as far as to call this shell of a movie one of mans greatest accomplishments, say that children should be made to watch this at school to educate them. Educate them about what? The film expresses nothing of worth was could not be equally well expressed in the sentence "The holocaust is bad, and Germans are/were (the distinction isn't really made) evil". There's precious little real history in school these days without this being misrepresented as it. It explains nothing of how it happened, or why it happened, one day a bunch of Germans got to together and decided to kill some Jews. That is fine in it's self, but prevents it from being a great film, or having any deeper meaning.