A Terse Statement

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2003)

I did enjoy this movie and its depiction of semi-actual events. However, the length and editing of this movie made me feel as if I'd actually been living for five years during WWII; normally, this immersion in the environment would be wonderful, but in this bleak, depressing scenario the effect was to make me exhausted. The editing depended heavily on close attention to detail and scene, as Polanski is certainly not given to fast editing (thankfully); however, the presence of several spurious scenes ultimately led me to feel tired upon completion of the film. A great movie -- I give it a 9 -- but it could have been better had the movie not felt like an epic crossed with an opus.