Disturbing in the wrong way.

Rating: 3/10 (29 November 2010)

I think we'll have to invent a new word for this movie. Holocaustsploitation, perhaps. The problem with this film is that it takes one of the most awful sets of events in human history and turns them into some kind of daytime movie for children and stay at home moms who like a good cry now and then. There's nothing wrong with being a kid or a housewife. But the holocaust really happened, you see.
I can just imagine Ellen or Oprah promoting this film in their mildly sociopath style, becoming just perfectly tear-filled in a perfectly calculated way and then everyone in the audience gets a copy of this film on DVD.
This movie has a strangely inauthentic feel to it and according to all documentary sources I have witnessed, it also IS very inauthentic. I think you cross a line when you set a film in and near an "Auschwitz-y kind of concentration camp" and then decide to make some things really authentic (like Zyklon-B crystals being blue, for instance) and some things, like the camp perimeter, sort of what you need them to be to make a fictitious story work. In fact some revisionist would probably love this picture, because it turns concentration camps into a fairytale.
I also found this film strangely unmoving. I don't know if its the music, the acting or the camera work, but it didn't really touch me in the slightest way. I found it mildly pleasant and entertaining to watch, which is completely wrong, when you think about it.
If you want to see a truly great movie about the Holocaust, you should watch "The Grey Zone". This is a deeply disturbing and chilling piece that portrays the stark and utter horror of Auschwitz like it should be portrayed. Its not a good cry. It doesn't provide any answers. Instead it rips something out. It leaves you feeling cold, numb and terrified. Sure, The Grey Zone has its flaws, like some strange casting and inconsistent acting, but its not a borderline debacle like this one.