Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

evening1 This film poses impossible questions.If you had the opportunity to forfeit your own life to save the lives of others, would you? If you chose not to, could you live with yourself?Susan Strasberg as Edith/Nicole is nothing short of amazing as a Parisian child of privilege who is forced to evolve from a tearful innocent into a world-weary ball-breaker, and, finally, resigned martyr. Every bit of her performance is believable.The ensemble of actors who surround her resound with verisimilitude -- Emmanuelle Riva as the ultimate concentration-camp realist; Didi Perego as an idealist who struggles to maintain her dignity and refuses to live without it; Gianni Garko as a Nazi soldier willing to be a friend, and Laurent Terzieff as Sascha, who, as Nicole's recruiter into an escape plot, is exceedingly difficult to read in moral terms.I didn't expect to find a film of this grandeur when I stumbled upon it on TCM. (Maybe the fact that often-scruffy introducer Ben Mankiewicz was wearing a suit should have been a tip-off!) It leaves one with much to ponder.In particular it leaves me marveling that just a few decades after the Holocaust this extreme low point in human history seems to be mentioned so rarely.Perhaps this film should be required viewing for anyone who doesn't want history to repeat itself.

ma-cortes A teen Jewish girl and her family are imprisoned in a concentration camp . There, the 14-years-old girl played by Susan Strasberg finds a harsh reality and changes identities with the help of the camp medic and rises to the position of Kapo. This is a good movie about the brutal existence at concentration camps and subsequent breakout from horrible place. This excellent movie deals about extermination center, abuse of camp guards or Kapos who enjoy their power, prisoners committing suicide and the subsequent getaway led by Laurent Terzieff and Russian prisoners . We see the horrors,murders,massacres against the prisoners and Nazis personify evil . Thus , when the incoming transports ,mostly Jews, SS soldiers made instant decisions,those who were fit to labors were sent into the camp, others including the children ,were dispatched immediately to the gas chambers.Finally the inmates broke out in a desperate riot that I believe it can be the concentration camp of Sorbibor, only in which Russian prisoners achieved to escape . The picture reflects perfectly the atrocities as a by-product of sheer Nazi evil . The flick is powered by splendid performances , as Susan Strasberg, -daughter of Lee Strasberg, creator of Actors studio- as suffering starring and Laurent Terzieff is watchable as obstinate Russian soldier wishing freedom. Appears as secondary actor playing a Nazi soldier Gianni Garco or John Garco, future Spaghetti Western hero named Sartana . Shot in magnificent black and white by Sekulovic and Carlo De Palma , Woody Allen's usual cameraman . Sensitive and atmospheric score by Carlo Rustichelli. The film achieved an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign movie but lost to the ¨Virgin Spring ¨. This extraordinary and unknown film by one of the pioneers of political film , he always interesting director Gillo Pontecorvo. It was one of the first films about the theme of Jewish holocaust and one of the more realistic in its recreation . Gillo subsequently will directed ¨Battle of Argel¨ and ¨Queimada¨.The picture is based on real events and survivor's memories,these are the following : The large death camps were transformed into extermination centers to implement the policy of genocide thought at the Wannsee Conference (1942). There was some minor industrial activity linked to the war effort but the main work was the execution of inmates (as happen with the starring's family) . Victims (as Susan Strasberg and her parents) were brought to the camp in unventilated transports, and all but a handful were gassed after arrival,the gas chambers could accommodate hundred prisoners at one time using Zyclon B which was a crystallized prussic acid which dropped into death chamber ,most of their corpses were burned in open pits (as occurs at the ending of the movie when is opened a large hole to bury unfortunates).

tarmcgator The first third of "Kapo" is powerful and affecting. The rest, despite the surface realism, borders on the ludicrous.I doubt that any filmmaker can create a fictional movie that thoroughly encompasses the Holocaust, because it was experienced by such a diverse group of people. In "Kapo," director Gillo Pontecorvo tries earnestly to tell the story of a French teenager who, separated from her Jewish parents, determines that she will survive no matter what. Edith (Susan Strasberg) assumes the guise of "Nicole," a non-Jewish political prisoner who escapes the gas chamber and finds refuge in a group of other female prisoners assigned to a labor camp, where the Nazis essentially work the inmates to death rather than exterminate them outright.Surviving the labor camp ultimately means becoming a ruthless stooge of the Nazis, and Edith/Nicole's descent into inhumanity is believable, up to a point. She becomes a thief, then a whore for the SS guards, and finally a brutal "Kapo," a privileged prisoner who supervises the other inmates. However, the transition accelerates to a point that the viewer is left wondering just how quickly it is occurring, and just how Edith/Nicole can shed her last shreds of sympathy and compassion for the other prisoners. She enters into a odd friendship with one of the German SS guards (Gianni Garko), but that interesting development is pursued only a little.Instead, a hunky Russian soldier, Sascha (Laurent Terzieff), arrives with a POW work detail, and, after almost getting him killed by the Germans, "Nicole" falls in love with him -- and "Kapo" starts to tread into Hollywood (or Cinecitta) silliness. (Falling in love with a soldier of the Red Army, rather than with an SS man, would have much more politically correct in 1959 Italy). Nicole's reverse transition from the amoral Kapo to a smitten adolescent, and the love scenes between Strasberg and Terzieff, are simply not believable in the context of what is seen earlier in the film. I suppose the filmmakers would argue that the love affair between "Nicole" and the Russian soldier was necessary to set up the final plot sequence: as the victorious Red Army approaches their camp, the female prisoners and Russian POWs plot a mass escape to forestall their massacre by the fleeing German guards. The denouement of "Kapo" is, perhaps, visually realistic, but it doesn't really mesh with the story of Edith/Nicole that emerges in the early part of the film.That first 25 or 30 minutes of "Kapo" are powerful and wrenching, as Edith is torn away (seemingly with no warning) from what appears to have been a relatively comfortable, middle-class existence in Paris (as comfortable as it could have been for French Jews in 1942-43) and transported to what we quickly recognize as Auschwitz. In a matter of minutes, Edith is plunged into near-surreal terror and then stripped of her old identity in order to survive as "Nicole." It is a sequence that promises much, which is why I found the rest of the film such a disappointment.I will not profess expert knowledge of the Holocaust, and perhaps the story told in "Kapo" could have happened. Pontecorvo and co-writer Franco Solinas did extensive research, and "Kapo" certainly has visual authenticity compared with various documentaries I've seen on the subject. Strasberg is effective in her role as Edith/Nicole; the other actors are credible given the roles they have to occupy. There is a noticeable problem with language; the film is in Italian, which the various nationalities represented among the camp inmates all seem to speak fluently and interchangeably; but a key scene involves an inmate translating the camp commandant's speech from German into -- Italian? How many Italian speakers would have been in such a camp? "Kapo," however, ultimately founders on the unbelievable relationship between "Nicole" and Sascha that dominates the second half. I just couldn't buy it.

Ripshin This Italian film, following the travails of a young Jewish girl in a Nazi work camp, is successful due mainly to its realistic sets, and the performances of Strasberg and Terzieff. Supporting cast members also shine throughout the film. The whole concept of the "kapo" is new to me, and it added a further dimension to the horrific Nazi experience not covered in films such as "Sophie's Choice" and "The Pianist." Deservedly, it was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Foreign Language Film) in 1960. Strangely enough, most filmographies of Strasberg fail to highlight her incredible performance in this film. Certainly, it must have reflected her performance as Anne Frank on Broadway. The same year as "Kapo," George Stevens released his film version of "Anne Frank," starring Millie Perkins, who took the role once Audrey Hepburn turned it down. Certainly, Strasberg must have been considered.A "kapo" was a prisoner of a concentration camp that watched over the other prisoners in a specified group. A kapo received better clothing, food, and was not required to work. 2001's "The Grey Zone" would be an appropriate double-feature with this film.