Schindler's List

As an avid fan of movies I make it a point to watch all of the classics. So it is a shock that I have just watched Schindler's list for the first time. The only reason I got the idea to watch it was because I saw it on HBO. Luckily I could start it from the beginning and watch this amazing film in its entirety. Even staying until 10 o'clock at school of play rehearsals, and being overly tired, I found myself unable to stop watching. I found this movie both the most depressing, yet inspiring film I have ever watched. The story begins with a religious service in color. As candles burn out the light fades and the film descends into black and white, with the smoke of the candle quickly turning into the smoke of a train. This smoke is highly important as it symbolizes the smoke of the Nazi death camps. Jews from all over Poland are transported to Ghettos where they are crowded like rats in horrible living conditions. We then see Oskar Schindler partying with Nazi officers, gaining his connections. He then uses the persecuted Jews to create a company so he can turn a profit from the war. The business goes well for awhile, until Amon Goeth , a Nazi officers come to town with orders to create and run a concentration camp. Then in one of the most disturbing scenes of the film, the German army storms into the Ghetto and dragging people out and into the camps. Any who resist are murdered with no remorse. Some Jews hide in walls, floors, beds, and cabinets. Possibly most disturbing about this scene is a sequence in which the army storms into the buildings killing everyone while a German officer plays merrily on the piano, seemingly enjoying itself. While this horror is taking place Schindler watches helplessly from a hilltop. The audience can see that Schindler's motives switch from trying to make mere profit, but to save lives. While he watches we can see a little girl walking among the carnage. she is easily identifiable because although the film is black and white, her coat is bright red. The audience does not know her fate until later in the film when Goeth is ordered to burn all the bodies of this massacre. Schindler's recognizes her among all the dead bodies, and almost begins to weep. The burning scene may just be the most disturbing scene in the film with bodies brought on conveyor belts into the fire. The only reactions the Germans have is to the intense smell. This helps show their lack of caring and or disassociation. Eventually Schindler wastes all of his fortune to buy the Jews and save their lives. And in a powerful scene which literally brought me to tears he crys and screams that he could have saved more people if he had just sold his car or even a pin. Although the pin may have only bought 1 person he is ashamed for not doing so. The movie ends in color with the real Schindler Jews escorted by the actors portraying them placing rocks on Oskar Schindler's grave. The audience learns that their are 4000 Jews living in Poland in 1993, yet there are 6000 decedents of the Schindler Jews.