Book Thief Review 11/30/19

Rating: 10/10 (1 December 2019)

"THE BOOK THIEF"
Dear, Brian Percival
my name is Paola Marquez and I am 16 years old as of right now. Also I am in the 11th grade attending J.P Taravella Highschool. I am taking the Holocaust elective which is why I am writing this letter about your amazing movie "The Book Thief". Due to this, I was assigned to pick one out of three movies about the resistance during the Holocaust, to which leaded me into choosing your movie in the end. To start off, I think your movie is by far outstanding and I am fairly impressed of how well you interpreted the story from the original book. What I have interpreted after watching your film which was basically about a german girl who starts a new chapter of her life with her foster parents, who end up hiding a Jew trying to escape their tragic fate while Hitler is taking over Europe during the 1930s-1940s, is the emotional pain one has to deal with when leaving someone dear to them. For example when Liesel (main character) and her brother had to leave their mother who was a communist (which at that time was taboo during nazi persecution), in order to escape from nazi power. Liesel's mom decided to do this after witnessing her father being taken away by the Nazis because he was also a communist.
Even if the pain of being separated by her mom was not bad enough, along their way to their new foster parents home, Liesel's brother dies halfway due to sickness and she had to see him be buried. The way I interpreted this scene, is how a girl from that young of an age, accepts death so calmly. And to be fair, I do not blame her for not seeing her cry her eyes out in this scene because she obviously has been going through alot. Her father was taken away from the nazis, she has been sent to live with a new stranger family because she is not safe with her mom, and then her brother dies, what else is worse than this. She understands that some things are not meant to last forever and she just needs to move on and start a mew life with her new family. The scene that impacted me the most throughout this film was the part that interpreted Kristallnact, November 9, 1938. Because this scene instantly affected my emotions and I honestly felt sad, the scene was by far unforgettable to me and I could only imagine how the people who were there and experienced that event would feel. Shattering jewish shops in the middle of the night only because they were jewish, and beating them up ontop of shattered class, was and is still inhuman. The main thing that stood out for me through this whole movie, is how it was narrated by Death. Death is telling a story about a little girl who is living with her new family who ends up saving and hiding a Jew who left his family in order to escape nazi persecution. Liesel's foster father knows and understands the consequences that could his families life if he were to be caught hiding a Jew, it is very much risky. But i do not think Hans (Liesel's foster father) saved Max (jew who was being hid) out of sympathy, he did it because he knew what was right and what was wrong, and being persecuted by Nazis just because they are Jews did not sit well for Hans, he couldn't accept that, so because of this he resisted against the nazi way. He knew he had to save this man, and that he did. Finally I would like to say to you that the scene in which made me cherish human significance, was the scene in which the bombing happened in their town to which Liesel's foster father and mother and close friend die and she was grieving their death upon seeing their lifeless bodies, something she did not do when her brother died, that really did struck my emotions because things started to go well for her and she knew that, and to see everything crashing down in front of her (losing her love ones) at the end of the film, was truly heartbreaking.