A modern moralistic tale

Rating: Null/10 (11 September 2011)

To be honest, having read a review before I watched this film, I was a little disappointed. It is a film, just, but the story is spread very thinly to make it go the distance, which in my opinion it doesn't, quite, even though it's listed as 94 minutes. The acting and photography are excellent of course, as one would expect of a BBC collaboration, and the settings, limited though they are, appear accurate, but the prison camp and numbers of extras, both soldiers and prisoners, are way too small in size and few in number for such a project. In many ways this film reminds me of a stage play adapted for the screen; it's just so 'pocket sized'? I suppose worst of all is that I can say it wasn't entertaining, or that I'm unlikely to want to watch it again, but that has more to do with what it says rather than anything qualitative. And in truth I believe we have been bombarded with this same moralistic tale since the 1950's. And really I am wondering why, given the all too common occurrence with which this subject, in one guise or another, pock marks human history. And especially given that extermination, by one method or another, is still happening all around us today?