Perfect Film

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2013)

I have never come across a film that had as a profound and lasting effect on me. This film is perfect in so many ways. It truly depicts the terrible nature of the Holocaust and one of mankind's darkest hours very beautifully.
The film starts out by showing us Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party who you would want to be friends with if you were alive at the time. He has money, connections, and charm. Who wouldn't want to be on his good side? Oskar is shown as a womanizing, egotistical, opportunist who is looking to make money off of cheap labor, aka the Jews. If someone were to watch this movie before knowing anything about Schindler and what he did, they might dislike him at first. However, he's also one of the few people in the movie who never despises the Jews. He did not care about the fact that his accountant, Itzhak Stern, was Jewish, even before he made the decision to save as many Jewish people as he could. He doesn't hate them, but at the same time, he doesn't feel he owes them anything.
As the movie moves forward, you gradually see Schindler's change in attitude, brought on by his accidental witnessing of the ghetto liquidation. Like many of us, his eyes follow a young girl in a red coat as she walks through the streets and runs into a building to safety. In my foolishness, I genuinely thought she had a chance at making it. Seeing her rather gruesome looking body being carted off to be incinerated was extremely disturbing for me because of that. That is also the scene in which Schindler really came to realize what a horrible regime this was. He looked horrified when he saw her body. Soon after, he begins to develop his list, paving the way for the rest of the movie.
There are so many moving scenes in this film. The ones that made me either want to cry or actually cry were the result of a build up of emotions from earlier in the film. For example, I can never hold in my emotion when Schindler and his wife are about to flee the country. Seeing him cry over the fact that he didn't give up even more and save just one more life really told me what this film was trying to get across; every human life is precious. The scene when each survivor and the actors who portrayed them put a rock on his grave also made me cry. When Emilie Schindler, his widow, came up to put it on his grave, she couldn't even reach it from her wheelchair, so the actress who played her did it for her. When she was being wheeled off, she looked back at his grave with an expression I can't even describe, like she wished she didn't have to leave her husband's grave, yet she also looked proud of what he had done.
Liam Neeson's performance as Oskar Schindler was phenomenal. He used just the right amount of charm and emotion needed for this character. His natural charm shows through, making him even more perfect for this character. In him, I can sense Schindler's confusion, doubt, and the obligation he feels to save 'his people'. His portrayal was Oscar-worthy.
My absolute favorite portrayal in the film was Ralph Fiennes as the brutal, real life SS officer Amon Goeth. To put it lightly, the man was a psychopath who murdered anyone he desired, usually just for the heck of it. It was extremely hard to watch him shooting people at point blank-range because they simply did a small thing to set off his violent temper. The creepy obsession he had with his his Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch, made his character even more complex. He hates himself for feeling these things for a Jew, so he takes it out on her by beating her brutally. It's hard to believe such a nightmarish character actually existed and did even more gruesome things than showed in the film. Survivors on set found it difficult to be around Fiennes because he reminded them so much of the real Amon Goeth.
If you have not seen this film, please do, it will be worth it and if you truly understand what messages they're trying to convey, it will stay with you for a very long time.