Man, the Holocaust was depressing. And this movie faithfully shows real life events of Jews in France in about the most depressing way possible.
The main focus is one family, and their various neighbors, who escaped Poland and came to Paris to avoid the Germans. Through the course of a pretty much hopeless two hours you follow them and a French Protestant Nurse, as they go through the various horrible things that the Germans and with compliance from the French, did to them.
A lot of the other reviews are calling it a French Schindler's List. It isn't. Schindler's List is beautifully directed and acted, this is not. The direction always feels like you're watching a documentary and aren't actually feeling a lot of the things that the characters are supposed to be feeling. Then it cuts to something else completely, like backroom dealings, and you almost feel like some voice over guy says, "Meanwhile in a dark dusty room in Paris." I think the director's main goal was to try to convince you that the French government was no better than the Germans and it didn't matter if that story fit his film or not.
My biggest issue with movie was actually the plot. At this point, pretty much everyone knows that the Holocaust was absolutely terrible. We see small moments of ordinary people being heroic and either hiding Jews or doing little things to help them. But then they're gone and there's no hope. Most of the other Holocaust movies focuses on a denouement of something good happening. Schindler had a list. Life is Beautiful *spoiler* ended the war. Not in this film. In this film, you knew that basically everyone was going to die since it gave the time frame of when it started. Sure a couple individuals survived. But you knew that basically all of the things that were done, would lead to the death of hundreds of characters. It just doesn't make the film that much fun to watch. It's tough to get attached to someone you know is going to die for no good reason.
If you want to see a movie about Jews in occupied France, sure. If you want to be depressed for a couple hours, with almost nothing breaking it up or giving hope, then La Rafle is for you. If you want to watch a movie about the Holocaust or the plight of Jews in that time period, there are some better films that actually give you some amount of hope about the whole situation. This one just didn't focus on that, instead going through the step by step ways that people were lead to their deaths.
The main focus is one family, and their various neighbors, who escaped Poland and came to Paris to avoid the Germans. Through the course of a pretty much hopeless two hours you follow them and a French Protestant Nurse, as they go through the various horrible things that the Germans and with compliance from the French, did to them.
A lot of the other reviews are calling it a French Schindler's List. It isn't. Schindler's List is beautifully directed and acted, this is not. The direction always feels like you're watching a documentary and aren't actually feeling a lot of the things that the characters are supposed to be feeling. Then it cuts to something else completely, like backroom dealings, and you almost feel like some voice over guy says, "Meanwhile in a dark dusty room in Paris." I think the director's main goal was to try to convince you that the French government was no better than the Germans and it didn't matter if that story fit his film or not.
My biggest issue with movie was actually the plot. At this point, pretty much everyone knows that the Holocaust was absolutely terrible. We see small moments of ordinary people being heroic and either hiding Jews or doing little things to help them. But then they're gone and there's no hope. Most of the other Holocaust movies focuses on a denouement of something good happening. Schindler had a list. Life is Beautiful *spoiler* ended the war. Not in this film. In this film, you knew that basically everyone was going to die since it gave the time frame of when it started. Sure a couple individuals survived. But you knew that basically all of the things that were done, would lead to the death of hundreds of characters. It just doesn't make the film that much fun to watch. It's tough to get attached to someone you know is going to die for no good reason.
If you want to see a movie about Jews in occupied France, sure. If you want to be depressed for a couple hours, with almost nothing breaking it up or giving hope, then La Rafle is for you. If you want to watch a movie about the Holocaust or the plight of Jews in that time period, there are some better films that actually give you some amount of hope about the whole situation. This one just didn't focus on that, instead going through the step by step ways that people were lead to their deaths.