a wonderful educational film for kids

Rating: 2/10 (17 February 2009)

This is a wonderful educational film for kids, I mean the youth between 12-18, to inform them about the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, but for adult Viewer who knows a lot about the Fascism and Concentration Camps this film will seem too straightforward and even tasteless. It is not enough to use a serious theme and a black and white film to make a good picture. And I definitely do not understand the viewers who behave as if they haven't seen any of anti-fascist films of much higher quality.
It is true -Mr. Spielberg is a great Master, Master of Manipulation and a great specialist of Exploitation Cinema. This is what exactly he does here - he exploits the Important and Painful topic of Holocaust (or it can be slavery, terrorism, etc) being perfectly aware that many would praise the film not for its artistic merits but for the STORY and the MESSAGE, and if one dares to say that the film is lousy - he/she will be immediately accused of being a revisionist, indifferent to peoples suffering, holocaust denier and almost Neo-Nazi.
Let me put this straight - I am none of these and still I think that Spielberg film is not good. It is not good as a piece of art but it might be good as an awareness raising reel - for those who had no or very little idea about Nazism and holocaust, but for those of us who don't need a gaudy movie from a Hollywood hack to know basics of history - there is nothing of interest here - I can name two or three dozens of feature films of documentaries that dealt with Holocaust much better, I suspect many of admirers of this film simply have not seen any of those.
Uneven script and even worse direction is camouflaged with the important messages and arty shell of BW photography. What comes tomy mind is another film about Nazism - somewhere in mid 70-ies Art-Porn maker Tinto Brass (of Caligula fame) took Nazim as a background for his film Salon Kitty. He invited famous art house stars Tulin and Berger who had previously acted in very highly regarded anti-fascist film of great Lucino Visconti and made own film about fascism. The result? Despite the sets, the stars, the important issues - the film still ended up being Art-Porn - as this was the only thing Mr. Brass could do. The same is problem with Spielberg - he might be really willing to make an important picture but still ended up with what he is best at making  exploitation movie.
As to the rain of Oscars  well, didn't "Around the world in 80 days" once get an Oscar?