Schindler's List: A flawless masterpiece of Spielbergian proportions

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2012)

Schindler's List is based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, an affluent German businessman who made his fortune in the pots and pans industry during World War II. After recognizing the atrocities committed by his fellow Germans towards the Jews, he hires as many Jewish day laborers as possible, paying off officer after officer, in order to ensure their safety and freedom.
I am a guy who likes to watch movies more than once: first to watch and enjoy, and the second to analyze and pinpoint the meaning of everything the director does. However, this film leaves such an impact and is so traumatic and horrifying that I could only watch it once. From the little German girl's foreshadowing words, "Goodbye, Jews!" to the death of the girl in the red dress, this movie depicts the abhorrent horrors of the Holocaust, like innocent men, women and children being sent off to their inevitable death in cattle carts.
The liquidation of the ghetto was, in my opinion, the most petrifying and tear-jerking sequence ever attempted. Everything you think you know about common decency and humanity is just thrown away: you are sucked into this world where everyone is a potential threat, and where you can die at any given second for doing some petty, meaningless little thing, like stepping out of line.
Steven Spielberg is honestly the bravest man in the history of filmmaking. He took a tragic era in world history and displayed it for everyone to see. People know the facts: 6 million Jews were killed over the course of 6 years, the gas chambers, the incinerators, the concentration camps, etc. What people don't (or should I say didn't) know are the stories. Who was friends with whom? Where did they live? What was their number in the concentration camp? Who lived, and who died? That is what Spielberg reveals to us. He shows us the horrors and hardships suffered by a specific group of people over the course of 5 or 6 years.
Then, Oskar Schindler enters the picture. He, at first, appears to be a greedy man whose only concern is money. However, then the horror show begins, and people begin to die at his feet. At first, he only saves the Jews because they are cheap labor. Then, he realizes that it is his calling to save them, not for money, but for humanity. He spends his entire fortune saving Jews, and in the end, he still thinks that he could have done more. "This car. Why did I keep this car? ten more people." In one of the best acted scenes in the history of film, Oskar Schindler, a strong, emotionless man, breaks down into tears when he sees what more he could have done. Although he is told over and over that he did enough, he keeps on thinking that he could have done more. In the end, it isn't about who he didn't save. it's about who he saved, and statistically speaking, there are more descendants of Schindler's Jews (as they are called) than Jews living in Poland. That just shows the impact that Oskar Schindler had on the Jewish population. As my Hebrew school teacher always said, "Saving one man is like saving an entire world."