Spielberg's Best

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2004)

This movies is one of the most emotionally shattering and ultimately uplifting movies ever made. Ther story of one man who begins the movie eager to make a profit from the slave labor of the Jews, and ends it by sacrificing everything to save them. Neeson's central performance is solid, if unspectacular - he is overshadowed by Fiennes, who shows a frightening ability to capture unspectacular and always human face of evil - but his somewhat stolid performance may simply reflect a trait that allowed Schindler to dupe the Nazis. Kingsley, in the other central role, tends to slide into the background.
The decision to shoot in black and white - as a confession, I love the look and texture of black and white - was perfect. Janusz Kaminski's black and white cinematography is a brilliant example of why B&W is superior to color in any film with an intimate feel or that deals with moral ambiguity.
The trouble I have with the movie was - SPOILER - the two scenes at the end; one with Schindler breaking down when the Jews that he worked to save go free, and he weeps over the lives he could have saved with his car, or his ring, or his suit, and the pebble scene at the end. It felt like a return to the mawkish sentimentality of earlier Spielberg movies: a blatant attempt at jerking tears from me, which I resent all the more because it worked, I suppose.
If Spielberg could have resisted the emotional hammer on this ine, it would have been a true classic.