horror film of epic proportions

Maybe I missed the point here but if there is a lesson to be taken from “Schindler’s List”, I always felt it would be that in times of great tragedy, money can buy a lot of good, especially coming from those with power. Oskar Schindler was a one in a million kind of guy- the fact he was a businessman only made him a better saint.

He wasn’t the hero people deserved, but was the one they needed. As played by Liam Neeson, he reminds a bit of a German James Bond. A classy, debonair type who could walk into a room and suddenly make friends with everyone in it by the end of the night. A man with true charisma and panache, people seemed to love him.

His goal at the beginning of World War 2 was Pots and Pans; to make and sell them, taking advantage of the war by hiring Jews as cheap labor. He cared more about money and women and hoped to be a millionaire by war’s end. Instead, he seemed to leave it penniless, but in excellent moral standing.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film marks the end of an absolutely baller 1993. That I can remember, no director has made two classic, all-time great films in one year before or since. And even if they did, I doubt they would touch the greatness of this or “Jurassic Park.” These movies are shock and awe; you watch one for primo entertainment, the other for the very definition of real life humanity coming up against supreme evil.

Spielberg directs the hell out of this and in a way it’s a film of ebbs and flows. We see Schindler, at first, as a rather unsaintly man more concerned with production growth than for his people, but under his protection, they are at least safe. Much better than rival scenes of people being thrown out into the streets, their valuables, belongings, and in some cases, teeth, taken from them.

We later see Schindler creating his own munitions factory, taking more than 1,100 Jews out of the labor camps and having them work in his factory. Much better than rival scenes of Jews literally having to turn on their own, do the most awful things to survive, and then also live with the thoughts of what these monsters were going to do with the children they ripped from parent’s arms.

Spielberg spares nothing. I’ve not seen this movie in a while but it’s astonishing how much the cruelty and horrors of the holocaust Spielberg forever imprints on the memory. A diverted train of women who come inches close to being gassed, kids hiding in latrines for safety, doing anything and everything to appear healthy for inspections. This stuff hurts to watch.

Then there’s Ralph Fiennes’ Amon Goeth. That the actor managed to ever play charming leads after this was a testament to his talent cause here, he goes for broke. Sadistic, hedonistic, just a total savage whose goal is extermination. He’s a monster, to him, anything other than that is basically showing weakness.

He’s the kind of man that Schindler’s accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) expects most Nazi’s to be. That Schindler isn’t this creates some confusion at first, but in some fantastic acting from both actors, they convey a simpatico relationship while also tiptoeing around the social structures that prevent them from doing so.

And this is still Neeson at his very best. Today he seems so far removed from this, it’s sad. But here he’s a flawed but personable, handsome, and charming lead. Keeping a hard exterior that’s hard to penetrate, we still see the little things that slowly change his heart, as well the “gift of gab” sales tactics that also somehow work, for a while at least, to change Goeth. He doesn’t appeal to Goeth’s kindness (he has none), but his love of power.

Spielberg shoots the film in gorgeous black and white, except of course for two scenes featuring the same girl dressed in red. Spielberg puts the emphasis on her, and Schindler is seemingly changed by her. For a film that’s more about plight than about getting to know the characters being killed, colorizing her seems to say what words cannot: that there are too many stories from this, each person has one.

But for every nice touch there are a few moments of overembellishment, including that ending where Schindler snivels his way through “I should have done more.” We get it, he martyred himself.

All that aside, “Schindler’s List” is some pitch perfect movie-making though. I’d go so far as to call it the quintessential holocaust film: the horrors, trials, sacrifices, and strength to survive all come through in undeniably powerful ways. It proves once again that Speilberg is a king of spectacle, even when showing cold reality.