What an ironic time for me to actually have time to sit down and watch a film over three hours long. After this week's controversy surrounding Liam Neeson, I realized that I have never actually seen any of his "classic" roles in which he shows off his actual acting abilities. Schindler's List, one of the most hailed war films of all time, is definitely just that: a great war film. While it may not be particularly to my taste, I enjoyed this masterful movie and the haunting story that it pounds into the audience. Liam Neeson does provide a fantastic performance alongside Ralph Fiennes, as the two make this depressing story so powerful and undoubtedly Oscar-worthy.
Schindler's List is the true story of Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, an enamelware factory owner who also happens to be a part of the Nazi party. When the Germans started occupying Poland during WWII, he ends up using his fortune to buy more than 1,000 Jewish citizens for work at his factory so they would avoid their unfair executions. This story is obviously the most discussed aspect of the film, as it shone more light on what actually happened to Jewish people back during the war. Up until the release of this film, there was knowledge but no widely-accessible visual horror of the kinds of terrible things that Jewish people were having to go through. Even though Schindler is the protagonist of this film and his story paves the way for the A-plot, I couldn't help but feel that this film's true purpose was to just recreate and display the horrors of the Holocaust. Which, 25 years ago, would be truly horrible to experience for the first time. This film did portray the events in a respectful way (by watering it down with a more feel-good story), but I have become so desensitized to these kinds of images, mostly due to my 21st-century schooling. Spielberg's direction blended these two plots together very well, but seeing all of these things happen to the Jewish people did not personally affect me at all, since I have seen gruesome content about this period since grade school. One may say that I am a fake film buff for not appreciating the incredibly painful runtime, but I was simply not affected by the slightly extraneous scenes that diverted my attention from the titular story.
What I did very much enjoy about the story, however, is how Schindler developed as a character and became the most integral part of this story. His sincere interactions with the Jewish employees and his swindling of the Nazis he was close to made for the most interesting plot to follow. Neeson nailed this role as well, providing a genuinely human performance as the *fake* Nazi he portrayed. Ralph Fiennes also co-stars in this film as Amon Goeth, a friend of Schindler's and devoted Nazi. Fiennes' performance was fantastic and thankfully, the writing did not attempt to humanize his behavior. Despite their close friendship, the contrasting relationship between Schindler and Goeth was incredible to see. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography was the most prominent technical piece that made this film look as extraordinary as it is. Every single frame of every shot of this film could honestly be a painting and I would not notice the difference. This movie is absolutely gorgeous in every sense of the word, from the camerawork to Michael Kahn's editing to the entire production design. Even though I feel like the choice of black and white and the little girl's pink jacket motif was a bit on-the-nose, I still loved the gritty and desolate look that this film had.
Schindler's List is yet another example of the emotional and stylistic range that only Spielberg would be able to pull off. This film provides a very interesting story and despite a lot of the scenes being unnecessary, I loved how beautifully it was told. War movies will never be my cup of tea, but I would definitely recommend this one.
My Rating: ★★★★
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