I just finished watching "The Diary of Anne Frank" (2009) and I actually liked how it only went up to the point where Anne was captured. Although the concentration camp scenes in "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" are very powerful, I almost think the focus on the life of Anne rather than the deterioration and death is more powerful.
What do YOU think???
I actually do like seeing the whole story and getting into the trauma and devastation that she went through. The Diary of Anne Frank is just a touch too sanitized for me. And inaccurate. The whole scene where the eight are captured is done so beautifully, especially with the inter-cutting of the happy scenes of them doing their daily routine and waiting for lunch and the approaching danger. It works much more than seeing the eight passively sit and wait for the Nazis to get them that day (I do suppose it's supposed to be seen as bravery, but there were two other people, brave and loyal people, who were totally ignored and two or three people in the annexe whose reputations are completely trashed).
If I was going to recommend an Anne movie to be watched with a parent and child, this is the one.
I think it's important that Anne's whole story, including her horrific death, are told because in the end it is because of how she died and how she was persecuted that we remember her and read her diary today.
I have seen many televised dramas of 'The Diary of Anne Frank', including the 1950s Hollywood film and the 2009 BBC drama, but the problem with them is that they only tend to cover the period in which Anne wrote her diary. As Anne started writing not long before she went into hiding and was unable to keep writing once they were all arrested, it is harder to get a clearer picture of how their lives were severely restricted as Jews in occupied Netherlands when we don't get a sense of what their lives were like before.
In the same way, in her diary Anne sometimes mentioned how lucky she felt being in hiding as she knew that her Jewish friends and acquaintances who had not managed to escape were in a much worse state. As the dramas based on only the diary often just focus on life inside 'the secret annex', we don't really get to see this either. I think this is clearly shown in 'Anne Frank: The Whole Story' where we often see Mrs van Pels complaining. First at the outbreak of war when she complains about how stuffy the room is because of the blackouts. Then when she is in hiding she complains about the lack of money and fine jewellery. As we first see Auguste van Pels complaining about more trivial things, to at the end seeing her crawling on her hands and knees trying to steal a piece of bread off another starving person in the concentration camp, we see how 'low' she has had to sink and the Auguste van Pels from 1940 is unrecognisable from the one in Bergen Belsen. This is what the Nazis did - took away people's identities and personalities so they were mere scavengers, trying to steal anything to survive.
I do tend to think that many adaptations and descriptions of Anne Frank have tended to focus on her 'faith in times of adversity' and I can understand why, but I do think people tend to misuse the 'I believe people are truly good at heart' quote and make it look like Anne was constantly a happy, life loving girl, because she wasn't. She said so herself in the passage directly after: "It's utterly impossible for me to build a life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions." In a way, it looks like Anne feels she has to stay positive in order to survive, in order for there to be a better future. There is a big difference between that and actually feeling positive.
I also wonder if Anne would have still believed in that 'good at heart' message if she had survived Bergen Belsen and told her story. This is why I think there is more to be gained by explaining the whole of Anne's story rather than her 2 years in hiding, even if it may be hard for some people to hear.
Beautifully said, Charlieee23!
Don't eva let nobody tell you you ain't strong enough
The funny thing is that I think most versions handle the Attic scenes remarkably well - in fact, better than the Whole Story does. The Whole Story really deals with the period leading up to the hiding and the period after their capture better than it handles the attic scenes, which are just "meh," I think. Its just a more surreal experience to watch something done out on film that had never been done on film before, which was Anne's suffering in the camps. The scenes in the attic are really just poignant in contrast to the misery Anne suffers later. On their own, I think the other theatrical versions do hold up better.
shareYes, simply because most of the other films were just so badly done. Not necessarily badly acted, but fictionalized. At least with this one you got most of the true story because they set out determined to tell the whole truth.
Today is the 70th anniversary of Anne starting the diary.
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