This or Shop On Main Street?

Rating: 10/10 (10 September 2006)

Only those people should reply who have seen both films, and not those people who wish to isolate one of these films as "uncomparable" while being ignorant of the other.
I saw Shidler's List about an year ago, and I really liked it. It's magnificently acted and has a sort of a documentary feel to it. I just saw Shop On Main Street last night and well, Schindler's List is good but Shop On Main Street is absolutely fabulous. What Schindler's List tries to say, and successfully does to some extent, with such a complex story, Shop On Main Street shows with a much more simple one. The whole objectivity of a man who can profit from another's misery but cannot do so is much more conceivable in Shop On Main Street than in Schindler's List. Why? Because quite frankly most of the characters in the List are a little two or even one dimensional and although a lot of List fans will pounce on me for saying this bear in mind that a lot of dedicated List fans agree with me on this, the characters of Shop On Main Street are much more human. Take the main character, Tono, for example, he is a coward and sometimes courageous, selfish and self-less, calm and furious, kind and cruel, conceitful and bent, weak and strong. So in a way as the List shows an absolutely exceptional man giving away kindness like Mother Teresa, Shop On Main Street shows an ordinary man trying to decide between saving himself and saving others like so many Aryans must have done in that time.