A must see movie! Fantastic albeit sad.

Rating: 9/10 (17 March 2018)

IMDB - Review of Schindler's List
Director:
Steven Spielberg
Writers:
Thomas Keneally (book), Steven Zaillian (screenplay)
Stars:
Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler), Ralph Fiennes (Amon Goeth), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern)
This a true story of the Holocaust and an atrocity of the purest of evil. The theme of good vs evil and morality plagues this film. Decisions made by the three main characters; Oskar, Amon & Itzhak throughout the film depicts the disposition of their thoughts, actions and morals. Stern is a humble Jewish man living his life and working to support his family but uprooted in the worst ways because of the war. Oskar at first sees the War as a vehicle towards his ambition in becoming a successful businessman and prove to his wife, friends and hometown that he has made it in life. Amon Goeth is the Officer in charge of the concentration camp in the Krakow that becomes close acquaintances with Oskar. He ultimately makes the decisions that Oskar constantly asks of him, such as the buying of the Jewish people at the end of the film.
Schindler's List tells the story of a failed business man named Oskar Schindler, who is of German ethnicity. The timeframe is set in Krakow, Poland during World War II. It is at the start of the German army forcing Jewish people into the Krakow ghetto and stripping them of all their rights before Adolf Hitler is set to impose his Final Solution, being the Holocaust. Oskar has failed at previous business ventures before and decides on a new route. His plan is to befriend high ranking German Military officers and use this leverage towards being able to start up a factory selling pots and pans to the German military. He has used up all his funds while implementing this friendship and is now in need of more capital to run the factory. He befriends a Jewish accountant named Itzhak Stern to both oversee his factory, and more importantly fund it as well. Itzhak gains the trust of other Jewish people to invest in Oskar's idea. In turn Oskar tells them that he will employ their family and friends and give them finished goods such as pots and pans to trade in the ghetto, which is worth more to them than their monies. Throughout the film we see Oskar's character swaying from greed to empathy as he sees the Germans plan for the annihilation of the Jewish race. He uses his funds that has made him rich over the course of the war to buy as many Jewish people's freedom and stave off being sent to the death camps implemented by Hitler.
This film garnered several Academy Award nominations and wins. Although this is a true story, we can claim because of the theme that it compares to a superhero film such as Batman or Superman; because the main character is the one fighting for good versus evil. Oskar does not have super human powers but because of his actions; families, offspring and names have survived. Oskar's character always waned in decision but made the best decision that he could in the eyes of morality.
Cinematography and lightening were huge ways for the director to show this theme throughout. It set the audience with a feeling of empathy, hatred, helplessness and sadness. The fact that the entire film was in black and white was significant. It made the claim that everything was surrounded by evil because of the darkness and that at various points light such as Shabbat candles and the little girl in the red coat tried to shine through the darkness. Another significant technique was the camera close-ups of the Jewish people's personal effects, such as eye-glasses, gold plated teeth, luggage, and so on. This showed to the audience that the Jewish people were nothing more than inanimate objects to the German soldiers and worth nothing except the value that they could extract from these objects.
The atrocities that Hitler and the German people committed against the Jewish population, the staggering numbered killed during WWII and the Holocaust, goes to show that there can be no greater evil than this.