THE BETTER: ‘SCHINDLER’S LIST’
WRITING: 95
ACTING: 95
LOOK: 100
SOUND: 100
FEEL: 95
NOVELTY: 90
ENJOYMENT: 90
RE-WATCHABILITY: 100
INTRIGUE: 90
EXPECTATIONS: 100
THE GOOD:
Spielberg’s decision to shoot this film in black-and-white truly helps to strengthen the period atmosphere, as the black-and-white blend seamlessly with the production design. Add to this a grounded, but never dull, cinematography and editing and you have a visually simple, yet charmingly stunning feature.
Openly embracing the filmmaking and storytelling techniques of the era, Spielberg shows a great understanding of not only the historical events that form the basis of this film but also the way movies were made at the time. The combination of a historically accurate script and old-school filmmaking techniques make this film look and feel legit and well thought out. You can feel just how personal this project is for Spielberg and how much heart he has poured over his vision.
What truly helps this film stand out from many other war movies is John Williams’ score. It might not be his most recognizable work, but it’s characteristically emotional, lively and layered. It helps elevate several scenes into unforeseen heights.
Part of the beauty of this film lies in the simple emotional strengths of the scenes with no dialogue. They manage to convey so much without a single line of dialogue being spoken.
Similarly strong scenes are the chaotic sequences of German soldiers terrorizing Jewish citizens. They do a great job of showing just how harrowing, terrifying and chaotic experiences these must have been for the involved parties.
It is refreshing to see a war movie less occupied wth actual war and fighting, and more focused on the smaller characters and their actions during the war - particularly when they turn out to have played an important role historically. It’s these rough sides of the victims of the war we rarely see in the American war epics.
Military characters, german in particular, are often played over-the-top. That’s why it is wonderful to see Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes fully embrace their characters for realistic, yet grounded and immersive performances.
Neeson, Fiennes, Ben Kingsley and the rest are all great. None of the actors stands out more than the rest, but all performances are well-rounded. None of the characters feels superfluous or unwarranted. Neeson’s performance is a slow-burner, with explosive power unleashed in the final act.
Seeing all the grime, blood and terror is shocking and upsetting. Speilberg doesnät try to gloss things over, which is perfect.
You’d think that a film this long starts to feel repetitive and tiresome at some point, but amazingly that never happens. Speilberg allows the story to play out slowly but steadily, feeding us enough content to keep us satisfied yet hungry for more and slowly showing howe Oskar Shindler turned from a simple businessman into a great humanitarian worker.
I can’t even begin describing the heartbreaking, distasteful, terrible, horrifying and evil crimes the Nazis committed during the war and which have been faithfully re-created for this film.
There are a certain satisfaction and energy embedded into the final hour of the film, as Schindler’s plan is put into motion.
I’ve never been so touched by a film ending before. It’s the most meta-ending to a film I’ve ever seen, mixing real survivors saved by Schindler with the actors from the film paying their tributes to the real Schindler. It’s incredibly powerful, and probably one of the best scenes Spielberg has ever directed.
THE BAD:
As much as I hate to enjoy watching the Nazi terror that forms a surprisingly large chunk of this film, I came in expecting a deeper look into the life and career of Schindler, as well as his important effort to save the lives of some 1,200 Jews during the war. There’s surprisingly little of that until the third act.
THE UGLY:
That little girl in red, the only flash of colour in this black.-and-white film, remains the strongest emotional symbol in anything I’ve ever seen.
VERDICT:
Spielberg’s personal masterpiece is a harrowing, realistic and shocking depiction of the horrors of the holocaust and the small heroic efforts of one man that still mean so much all these decades later.
96% = :white_check_mark::white_check_mark: = BETTER
A sad end
Genny was so powerful. Inside those buildings. It was like a castle. With lots of soldiers. Young and unexperienced ones.
Ciro deserved to die again he survived, with his luck and intelligence.
It was so rackless that genny's people were ambushed. Could not even fire.
So, don pietro was faking to seem as sick. To transport and to escape. Cost of that was to lose wife, son and all loyal friends, except one i think.
Not all of those adult gangster would join conte. Why did genny try to kill all? I dont know.
Maybe genny did not die.
They were all walking around with guns for days but no cops came.
And how did genny earn money? The business was still going on probably.
Lets see what don will do. He has still soldiers. So, he can take revenge i hope.
This will be the last episode for that series for a long time because i watch series season by season. So, i have to move to another series.
I gave 6 / 10 for this finale.
After 3 years again rewatching to get on series again on 26.5.24 :
I agree what i wrote before. The youngs were so amateurs . Genny even did not know their soldiers were killed and went there. Ciro should have shot again to kill genny but he did not.
Holy shit, what a film! I gave the first one a 9/10 because the story didn't mean much to me on a personal level, but introduce a little mute immigrant boy whose entire family was murdered in cold blood and who still goes on to become one of the most powerful men in the United States and you have my heart. Vito's background story definitely gave this film an emotional edge the first one didn't have for me, and all my favourite films must make me at least slightly emotional. Michael is such a good character too, completely different from his father, much more ruthless, and yet much more vulnerable as well. His evolution from the first film is incredible to watch, as he becomes this cold, scary in his serenity crime lord, even though you will still catch a moment of weakness and nervousness here and there, which tells you he's not invincible either. The way he ends up completely alone and the way they parallel the ending with that scene with all the brothers at the dinner table discussing Michael's future, which he thought would be brighter and more commendable than that of his brothers', or even his father's, is so powerful.
Story telling and structure wise, I found this movie more compelling than the first. The time-jumps, the parallels, the origins of the family - all of it makes for a much more complete and immersive watching experience.
Technically, I also found the sequel more beautiful than the first installment, the cinematography was gorgeous.
All in all, I absolutely adored it.
10/10
Before explaining why I liked this movie, I'd like to point out that the main idea of the movie is NOT that you need find your purpose to have a happy life. It's the exact opposite! I'm not saying this just to be a professor, but because it's really important and that's why I loved the film so much. You don't need to be fixated about something to find a meaning in your life. You need to savour it and learn to enjoy the little moments instead of waiting for something big to happen to reach happiness. It's so profound and refreshing. A movie just about a guy waiting for his big moment and feeling fulfilled after having reached it would have been dull, boring, trite and most of all wrong, like pretty much all "self-help" advices.
Instead the opposite idea is presented and if you just pay attention to the dialogues -and the story, really- you'll understand what I mean and most importantly what you might apply to make your everyday life better.
But back to the movie I've got to say I almost cried as the end was approaching as much as I was going to turn off the tv when the movie started. The whole initial setting reminded me too much of Inside Out, a film I quite disliked, so I was worried it was a copy of it (it kind of is in the beginning). But luckily the second half steered away from it and developed in one of the most moving film I've seen in a long time. Undoubtedly one of Pixar's best.
The fuck? (pardon the pun)
It's actually impressive how diabolically terrible '365 Days' is. I had heard small details about how sexual this was but hadn't seen anything about the film's other aspects. Now I know why, there aren't any.
It's just one big illicit romp with practically nothing holding it together, a cynic would say this is Netflix just getting pornography on their platform through the back door (pardon the p... nevermind).
The worse part about this is the glorification of sexual violence, whether it be kidnapping or even - startlingly - rape. How the plot plays out is actually extraordinary - it turns out THIS is the way into a would-be lover's heart... who knew?! It's crazy. You could argue it's a sexually explicit retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast', but that's an argument for another day.
They could've done this without the aforementioned and still got the same vibe out of the film, it's bizarre why they choose to go down this direction. You can make characters hate each other before jumping into bed together, you simply do not need the criminality aspect.
If I were to offer minor solaces of 'praise' about this 'film': the music (random Mabel is random) and the end scene, which is well shot.
This movie is about a protagonist who is a murdering rapist, yet for some reason you are sorta kinda rooting for him. What the fuck? A Clockwork Orange literally makes me uncomfortable in the opening 30min or so. The terrible things Alex does are excruciating to watch through, especially when he belts out "Singing in the Rain". Then after that, you are just following his punishment and for some reason hoping for his release from jail.
Outside of the story, the camera work is great as always. Also, I love the musical choices. Both standard Beethoven and electronic Beethoven are always wonderful. But on top of that you get some nice horse racing music to enhance an, un, entertaining scene. The future 70s design is pretty great as well. Gotta get me one of those coffee tables they have in the opening shot.
It really bothers me that I am sorta kinda on Alex's side, and that is why I think this is an amazing film. The fact that Kubrick makes you feel wrong is astounding. Him and Malcolm McDowell just really know how to work together. The fact that Alex is so charming and funny is a big part of what does this. When you know he's still a terrible person at the end, you still end up laughing at his manipulative interaction with the politician feeding him. Why the hell am I laughing that a robbing, murdering, rapist eating food pompously?
If you hate this movie, you're probably a better, moraler person than me.
Interesting concept, well acted, but nothings ever really clearly explained. I thought it was going to be something around deepfakes or something like that, but nope. They never really discuss money, like they never say that she isn't making money when the fake takes over, it's not even really implied since she's still splashing out to talk to the fake and buy her brother gifts and stuff. Some characters aren't really explained and just seem to flip flop, like Barney (I think that's his name) I get it's probably just showing people online are just facade's, but it's just unexplained and out of character in a way. Even the discovery of what she does was odd, it caused like a small rift that was fixed when she came home, one unanswered call to her mother is like the only sort of conflict beyond the discovery at the party and then yeah it's just fine, despite the fact it was in front of her brother, his friends, her mum and seems like various close friends and family, didn't seem to cause any issues when she goes out and stuff. Everything feels sort of inconsequential, since there's no real big effect after something happening. The ending doesn't explain the origins of where the fake came from, why they did it and who did it? so it's a movie with suspects who are almost immediately aren't suspects and no real conclusion which is what this film needed, since it implied a person or people were doing this. Just feels like a cool concept being wasted, by overlooking certain things that needed some addressing to keep the story coherent. Its pretty much a mystery that wasn't really solved and she goes back to work, but tries to be more careful of these people or AI? it just feels like a mess, but again it was well acted and well shot which is a positive, but would recommend a watch just to see what could have been I guess.
Reading the collider interview done after, he said it was supposed to be an algorithm and he was going to show servers and stuff to make it clear, but thought it was distracting, but without that, it makes less sense. He wanted to make it a film about an artist who will stop at nothing to do their craft, but it's never portrayed that way, she just seems to do it as a job to pay bills, but she has some morals. It's interesting especially reading the interview, seeing it like just a machine taking over your life kind of is interesting, but a lack of time spent getting certain things across or explaining things holds the film back.
