Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 1998)

I guess I was lucky in that I knew nothing about the movie before I first saw it (an accident too involved to explain here!). I was therefore not affected by the usual "Speilberg masterpiece" hyperbole that seemed to attach itself to any review. Subsequent viewings have however confirmed that this is in fact a Masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.Take out the "quirky" black & white photography, which I actually found to be a bit of a wank, (the jews and nazis experienced this all in real colour not in mono in a sterile cinema), the feel and strength of the photography made me weep... I was there, I was a victim. That probably sounds very pretentious from a white, middle class, Catholic Australian, but if a movie can move me the way this did, it must have something going for it. I have seen this movie 4 times now and although the shock value has been diminished somewhat, the message remains... ignorance is deadly! His best work by far.. including the very, very over-rated "pseudo horror" flick Saving Private Ryan.