MovieChat Forums > Operation Finale (2018) Discussion > Sylvia. SPOILERS!!!

Sylvia. SPOILERS!!!

posted 6 years ago by Jeepster (1167)
7 replies | jump to latest

So the catholic girl was Jewish huh? She didn’t know until then that she was Jewish right? Something like that is a big shock, the movie failed miserably to show the effects of this big reveal, especially in the time & place she was living.

She meets Eichman’s son, “Hi I’m Sylvia! I’m catholic” He’s like “The jews this, the jews that” She’s like “Ok” then goes out & attends some of the “meetings” with him. Then she finds out she’s a jew & is torn up about it, & is like, “Does it really matter? Don’t you like me for who I am?” Nevermind the fact that that’s the last thing you should be asking the guy at this point but I guess the writers wanted it in there.

What the hell? This is actually unintentionally hilarious the way these events played out.
It doesn’t seem plausible that such a thing would happen but that’s the direction they took in this film. In reality she’d be too stunned to really react one way or the other. Nevermind give a shit if the guy still liked her or not. She’d be in shock. “You mean I’m not a Christian catholic? Wait! You’re telling me I’m a Jew in Nazi Germany where I thought, I don’t know I was maybe a Italian Roman Catholici? Ain’t life a bitch?”

I’ve seen many a “Had a bad day” moments in movies before but this takes the cake.

That part of the movie lost me. How about the rest of you?

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 6 years ago

I agree. I liked the film but felt that it was not great. Nice production value, some excellent moments, and a plot progression that didn't suck ... but somehow was less than what I expected. The Sylvia character was not good for a few reasons but the discordance you outline was the real eye roller.

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 6 years ago

Also you can still be a Jew and a Catholic at the same time.

[–] Adam60z (3781) 6 years ago

Well she was of Jewish origin, but Catholic religion (I think her father's conversion is what saved his life). You can't be both at the same time in the religious sense unless you're split personality. You can of course be half and half ethnically, which tons of people are. However in the Nazi definition anyone of Jewish origin is Jewish. But that of course is a false definition.

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 6 years ago

Being jewish is both an ethnicity and a religion, so ethnically she is Jewish and to quote Pope Bendict XVI and Roy Schoeman, an Orthodox Jew who converted to Catholicism: Rabbinical Judaism is pre-Messianic Judaism and Catholicism is post-Messianic Judaism, since it predates Rabbinical Judaism by about 50-100 years.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Jewish is not an ethnicity. A soon as a group allows for conversion into the group it stops being a ethnicity. It is nothing but a religion like any other. It was once a very closed religion but a religion none the less.

[–] Adam60z (3781) 6 years ago

Most of this film was based on the true story, however yes, some aspects of it were a bit ridiculous artistic license. For instance she never attended a Nazi meeting with him, and I'm pretty sure she never told him she was of Jewish origin. I'm not sure what you mean by "big shock". She was raised Catholic, so finding out she had Jewish origin would only be shocking to someone to whom such things matter....such as Eichmann or his son, not her herself.
Another scene that was just pure fiction was how Eichmann just before he was smuggled out tried to prompt the agent to kill him by taunting him about his dead relatives. Eichmann, evil though he was, never said stuff like that to the agents, and he didn't want to die.
Anyway it was still worth seeing, even though there are at least four previous versions each with varying degrees of quality.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6543) 6 years ago

Some other stuff seemed pretty unlikely too.
Why did they need a signature for El Al? Isn't El Al owned by the government? Wouldn't they just instruct them to fly him to Israel regardless?
And did those South American Nazis really know what was going on and race to get to the plane at the last minute? And did the S.A.N. really almost find the safe house? And did they really take the Dakar landing papers out of the folder? All seems rather suspiciously designed to create drama.