I wasn't at all familiar with this movie, but because of an abiding interest in the history of the Third Reich and the Holocaust, I decided to rent it. The true story was one that I wasn't familiar with: the rebellion of a group of Jews at a Nazi concentration camp. The jacket of the DVD placed the focus of the movie on the rebellion, but that was a bit misleading. The bulk of the story had much more to do with the mindset of collaboration than with the rebellion, which really received very little focus, until the end of the movie.
In this film, we learn about the "Sonderkommandos" - groups of Jews who helped the Nazis maintain order at the concentration camps in exchange for a few extra privileges and a few extra months of life. The look at the mindset of collaboration was fascinating. The sonderkommandos are - understandably - looked down on by the rest of the Jews; the sonderkommandos themselves have some definite moral qualms about their work and - in spite of their own collaboration with the Nazis - they are definitely antagonistic toward Dr. Nyiszli (Allan Corduner), a Jewish doctor who gets even more privileges by co-operating in Nazi medical experiments on some of the captives. They're Jews who just don't fit in with the victims of the Holocaust (although they, too, will become its victims), and yet, even though they help the Nazis, they obviously don't fit in to that circle, either. Their existence was lived in a true "grey zone," in other words. This is a troubling story in many ways (as surely any movie about the Holocaust should be!) with some scenes being quite graphic.
And yet, somehow the movie didn't keep me glued to the screen. It was interesting, but really not more than that, and I had hoped to learn more about the rebellion itself, which was passed over rather quickly I thought. For those interested in the subject, it's worth watching, but certainly not a masterpiece.
6/10
In this film, we learn about the "Sonderkommandos" - groups of Jews who helped the Nazis maintain order at the concentration camps in exchange for a few extra privileges and a few extra months of life. The look at the mindset of collaboration was fascinating. The sonderkommandos are - understandably - looked down on by the rest of the Jews; the sonderkommandos themselves have some definite moral qualms about their work and - in spite of their own collaboration with the Nazis - they are definitely antagonistic toward Dr. Nyiszli (Allan Corduner), a Jewish doctor who gets even more privileges by co-operating in Nazi medical experiments on some of the captives. They're Jews who just don't fit in with the victims of the Holocaust (although they, too, will become its victims), and yet, even though they help the Nazis, they obviously don't fit in to that circle, either. Their existence was lived in a true "grey zone," in other words. This is a troubling story in many ways (as surely any movie about the Holocaust should be!) with some scenes being quite graphic.
And yet, somehow the movie didn't keep me glued to the screen. It was interesting, but really not more than that, and I had hoped to learn more about the rebellion itself, which was passed over rather quickly I thought. For those interested in the subject, it's worth watching, but certainly not a masterpiece.
6/10