The most moving, exceptional film ever made!!

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2002)

I had no expectations going into this movie. I had heard different opinions about it and I was pleasantly blown away by it. It left me in tears which few movies ever truly do. I honestly believe this to be one of the top ten greatest films of all time...not necessarily because of it's watchability but because of it's content and the way it is filmed. Liam Neeson (Who I have never been fond of) plays Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party who is a brilliant business man, con artist, and German personality. He loves his ladies and his booze but is also quite humane right from the very beginning. When the Germans invade Poland and begin to send Jews into Ghetto's he opens a factory making cookware (pots and pans) using the jews as labor. However, it isn't cruel labor but rather he is giving them a purpose and treats them as equal workers giving them benefits and good working conditions...to him...he's just making his money. He is very humble about everything and does not see why the Jews are so happy with him. As the movie continues we see the honest progression of the war and the hatred towards the Jews. The rumours of the gas chamber begin to circulate, and we watch as Almon Goeth played chillingly by Ralph Fiennes (another actor I have never been overly fond of) murders Jews at will keeping the other Jews in check by fear. Goeth is a power hungry, Nazi who thrives on seeing people suffer by his hand. He's been given a high powered rank and milks it for all it's worth and enjoys it. He snipers Jews from his window...just for sport. He's empty and pure evil. When Schindler happens to oversee a Ghetto raid by the SS he is moved to tears as he watches his workers being brutalized. As he makes his millions he wields his own more subtle power with bribes, women, food, wine, reputation in order to progress his business and save his workers. He then takes a quite signifigant more direct role by actually buying off top ranking Nazi officials in order to "buy" Jewish workers...the workers and their families who worked for him in his cookware plant. He begins to make a list of 1100 Jewish people he wants bought and brought by train to his new Munitions plant where they are to make shell casings for bombs. A very intense scene takes place when the Jewish women he "purchased" are re-routed to the wrong place because of an error in paper work. They think that this is it for them and the gas chamber will be their destination but the error is fixed and the women arrive unharmed to Schindler's Plant. In the most moving scene in movie history...Schindler breaks down before escaping Allied forces at the end of the war and realizes how many had died outside his factory and how many he wished he could have saved. Liam Neeson performance in this entire movie but especially in that scene will haunt me forever. This film is never to be tossed on a back shelf...it is so much more than a classic...it's brilliance. I don't, however, necessarily take it as historical fact when it comes to Schindler. In reading on him I don't see him quite as the beloved character you feel in the movie. He seemed more selfish and perhaps less humble in real life...but nonetheless the man saved 1100 and then some Jews and that to me makes him a hero no matter what. This movie though is one no one can ever miss. It's a triumph!!! 10/10