Review of Schindler's List (1993) by Akashvijay — 19 Jan 2015

Sappy, manipulative and a ridiculously oversimplified version of the Holocaust.

Spielberg has made a name for himself in the film industry by reducing serious subjects to the lowest denominator until it's no more than any mawkish family melodrama. Why should a movie about the Holocaust be any different? Schindler's List is an aesthetic mess and exemplifies everything that's wrong about Hollywood.

First off, the movie's primary focus is to show us how Oscar Schindler, a slave owner aiming to run his factories through jew labour for monetary profit, turns into a defender of jews' rights and the protector of their lives. But the problem is Schindler's transformation is portrayed in an extremely poor way. In fact, there is no transformation. Midpoint in the film, the Schindler persona has disappeared, and we have a new character clothed in the same flesh -- a self-sacrificing philanthropist who spends his entire amassed fortune to save the Jew workers. How did we get from one to the other?

And then we have Amon Goeth. He's an evil, sadistic, Jew-hating Nazi - but do we get to know why he wakes up every morning, takes a swig of booze and snipes Jew prisoners for fun? No. Spielberg thinks the answer is obvious -- he's a Nazi, and Nazis don't have reasons for the things they do. The attempt to add depth to Göeth's character by dwelling on his twisted love affair with a Jewish girl is easily seen for what it is -- a cheap exposure of Nazi hypocrisy. The true intrigue, the true horror of the Holocaust does not lie in brutality alone, but rather in Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil". How can a man (or millions of men) arbitrarily narrow the moral sphere to exclude people seemingly no different from neighbours, friends and family?

Another problem is the accent. There are English-speaking films and then there are German-speaking films. Schindler's List, on the other hand, does not belong to either of these categories. One of the truly unforgivable aspects of the film is the ending. When Schindler took off his gold ring and blubbered "I could have saved one more", I experienced a feeling of mild revulsion. Spielberg's invariable resort to sentimentality is quintessentially Hollywood, quintessentially cheesy and quintessentially inappropriate for the subject matter of the film. Schindler's List is technically brilliant but Spielberg is a director of extremely limited vision. His moral and intellectual depth is that of a child (and the funny part is Schindler's List may be the most mature movie Spielberg has made till now).