Review of Schindler's List (1993) by Jessviss — 03 Oct 2017

The movie "Schindler's List" was based on the novel written by Thomas Keneally called "Schindler's Ark/Schindler's List". This novel won the best prize for fiction (Booker McConnell Prize) decades ago. This movie was likely portrayed by history teachers as historically accurate, so it was jarring to learn of its origin. Of all the things that happened in WW2, there is no need to fictionalize things, especially just to sensationalize it to sell more movie tickets/DVDs.

The movie itself portrayed things in a needlessly sexualized manner, and was over-dramatic as a whole. For example, did the woman who woke up from sleeping with the German soldier have to be topless? Isn't that sexist objectification of women? Doesn't belong in this genre. Pervs may like this, but if a movie is going to portray a grim topic it shouldn't do so in a dishonorable way like that.

Another thing is that it stereotypes all Germans as psychopathic, sadistic murderers who take every waking moment to victimize innocent Jews. It dehumanizes the German people with this stereotype, and could be used to justify any abuses against them. The movie doesn't take into account historical facts that would balance this obvious false bias, such as the fact that Jews declared war on Germany (Daily Express on 24 March, 1934) which led to the Jewish boycott of German goods. Nor does it mention that there were Jewish supremacist groups like Nakam (Abba Kovner) that attempted to poison the water supply of German civilian cities after the war was over, or how they coated arsenic onto the bread inside the camp where the German POWs were being held (because apparently some thought that not enough Europeans died in WW2). What about the Soviet genocidal brutality that went on in the gulags? This of course was not mentioned.

Also, there is nothing really different about this movie, from all the other movies about this topic. Using emotional scenes to tug at heartstrings shouldn't ever be considered as a replacement for historical facts.

The truth fears no investigation.