Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Sindre Kaspersen French professor, film editor and director Claude Lanzmann's fifth documentary feature, premiered in the Out of competition section at the 54th Cannes International Film Festival in 2001, was screened in the Forum section at the 52nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2002, was shot on locations in Belarus and Poland and is a French production which was produced by producer Pascal Caucheteux. It tells the story about a Polish-Jewish man named Yehuda Lerner and his experiences in World War II. Distinctly and subtly directed by French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, this quietly paced documentary which is narrated by the filmmaker, mostly from the interviewees' point of view and translated by French author, lecturer and researcher Francine Kaufmann, draws a telling portrayal of Jewish ghettos and prisoner of war camps in Minsk, Belarus and a journey which started there. While notable for its atmospheric milieu depictions and distinct cinematography by French cinematographers Caroline Champetier and Dominique Chapuis, this narrative-driven story reflects upon what happened one day at a place called Sobibor in Poland seventy-one years ago. This historical testimony of real events which took place during the Second World War in the early 1940s, which is set in the 21st century in Belarus and Poland and which contains interviews conducted by the French filmmaker in the late 1970s which originally was intended to be used for another work which was released in the mid-1980s, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, rhythmic continuity and the telling scene of gesses. A silently informative documentary feature.

xenon-22 I think that Lanzmann spoiled a good story: too much text at the beginning of the movie, an endless introduction, a mutilated translation from Yiddish to French... I don't know Yiddish, but you can easily guess that's impossible for the translator to summarize in a sentence two minutes of talk. So what did, in fact, Lerner say, always smiling, even when he was telling horrible things?Lerner's testimony is not convincing either, at least for me. Something in the way he stands in front of the camera makes me wonder if he is telling all the truth. I disagree with the person that spoke about his "modesty": on the contrary I think he is anxious to portray himself as a hero.I felt relieved when the movie finished and naturally I couldn't endure the long, long list of trains that Mr. Lanzmann delightedly recited for five minutes, I guess. A true disappointment.

guiguil It is a fixed shot of Yehuda Lerner telling how he succeeded to escape from the Extermination camp of Sobibor. The sober way of this documentary keep the emotion of that simple man heroic action. The first time I saw this documentary I was dazzled by the modesty of Yehuda Lerner in regard to his heroic action. He says anyway he was already dead so why not trying to escape (he escaped many times from concentration camp before the extermination camp of Sobibor) and that he had a good star.Besides this great lesson of fighting of life of this kid (he was only 16), we learn how was managed an extermination camp and we have a lot of details that give us an idea how it was. We understand too how difficult it was for jewish population and others extermined people to fight against Nazi. People could not believe they were getting extermined and they didn't know they had to organised themselves against that and moreover it is difficult to fight when you are not a soldier or a political militant. You can see that in the beautiful movie Roman Polanski's The Pianist.It is a must see movie because it is about the only (or one of the only) succeeded escaped from extermination camp.

zombie9874 I understand how important it is to tell this story, but nothing can make up for how boring the execution of this film is. At one point its a 45 min. head shot of the main character who is telling the story. The man constantly restates himself to the point where you the audience member find yourself wishing for a bullet in the head to stop the agony. You would think that with the large amount of film that was shot by the German army during the Third ritch that director Claude Lanzmann could have made this film more visually appealing and interesting than the boring monologue that we are left with.