Watch "Shoah" instead

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 1999)

While I admire much of what Spielberg accomplished with this film, I can't escape the feeling that the material would have been better served by a completely documentary-style approach. No matter how sensitively Spielberg displays the sequences of mass murder, accusations of voyeurism are unavoidable. Indeed, there have been isolated reports of neo-nazis openly admitting to repeatedly viewing parts of the film in order to revel in the violence so explicitly depicted.
On a personal note I, myself, found Claude Lanzmann's film "Shoah" to be incalculably more affecting than anything in "Schindler's List." It's the only film that I can think of which should be made compulsory viewing. The fact that it's nowhere to be seen on the IMDb top 250 is a complete travesty. Then again I shouldn't be too surprised; I doubt that many 9-hour subtitled documentaries get to reach Kansas City.