Compelling true horror.

Rating: 10/10 (26 April 2000)

Schindler's List grips from it's first moments and holds audiences far beyond the final credits. Spielberg documents Otto Schindler's success in saving many Jews from the horror of Nazi death camps. More importantly the film chronicles, in horrific detail, the nightmare that Polish Jews went through.
Thankfully avoiding sentimentality or romanticism Spielberg takes us into the gettos and camps, dispassionately observing moments of heartbreaking tragedy, we watch horrified as a young Jewish woman, an architect, is shot for being right, or as the camp commander 'plays' with the Jewish prisoners by shooting them from his balcony.
Shot in stark black and white (except for the final ten minutes) the film convies beautifully the worst and the best of humanity. One exceptional touch is worth mentioning; as Schindler watches, in black & white, the Jews being hearded from the getto, he spots a little girl in a red coat, the camera follows her until she is swallowed into the teeming crowds. Later we see the red coat on a lorry of disgarded clothing, but no little girl.
Spielberg has never been better and no Hollywood film has captured so accurately the human tragedy of the Hollocaust.