Manipulates the feelings and questions your beliefs

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2009)

Without giving away the ending this is pretty much a run of the mill holocaust film, it's saving grace is that it does make you question your emotions as to what eventuates and as to whether your feelings should be shocked by the entirety of the whole or the circumstances under which the unexpected happens. In other words what shocks you more the overall tragedy or the way another innocent is drawn into the web of madness that was Germany during the second world war. The obvious English accents of the actors playing Germans grated for me and the film did drag for me for a lot of the time with stereotype Nazis being portrayed as evil against the naivety of the central character of the young German boy and the sad situation of his young Jewish friend. I understand this was adaptedfrom a well regarded novel and I was appreciative that I hadn't read it as I would have found the whole journey rather tiresome. The power ofthe film lies in its ending in my opinion