Excellent film, but flawed.

Rating: 10/10 (8 June 1999)

I found Schindler's List a wonderful movie. It is one of very few movies which are watchable over three hours. Moreover, one of even fewer which are moving, fascinating and entertaining over its three hours. It comes second to La Vita E Bella in terms of presenting the real holocaust, though - not in terms of realism but because in LVeB, we care more about the victims. In SL, we care about Helen and Stern, but not too many others. In LVeB, we care about the family, and so it is even sadder when the holocaust takes its toll on them. The most powerful parts of SL are either the scenes without dialogue where we see mass suffering, or where Liam Neeson places his demands for Schindler's Jews. The balance of sentimentality just wasn't right. In most of Spielberg's work, there is too much (I did fear it and when we got shots of the children, I almost felt like walking away) but in SL there was not enough. However, I gave it a 9, because the film as a whole was more than these flaws.