Cinematic Score: SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes,
Ben Kinsley

MY RATING: *****

Schindler's List is a film directed by Steven Spielberg, telling the story of Oskar Schindler, a German Catholic businessman who saved the lives of over one thousand Polish Jews. It starred Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as the officer Amon Goth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's secretary Itzhak Stern.

The film begins with Oskar Schindler, an unsuccessful businessman, arriving from Czechoslovakia hoping to use the abundant slave labour force of Jews to manufacture goods for the German military. Schindler, an opportunistic member of the Nazi Party lavishly bribes the army officials in charge. Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of army mess kits. Not having much kno-how of running such an enterprise, he gains a contact in Itzhak Stern, a functionary in the local Jewish Council who has contacts with the now underground Jewish business community in the Ghetto. Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis and enjoys his new-found wealth and status, while Stern handles all administration. Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto though, and Stern falsifies documents to ensure that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" by the Nazi bureaucracy. Schindler becomes aware of what is happening to the Jews in general, but takes no action to stop it.

Amon Goth arrives in Krakow to initiate construction of a labor camp nearby. The SS soon clears the Krakow ghetto, sending in hundreds of troops to empty the cramped rooms and shoot anyone who protests, is uncooperative, or for no reason at all. Schindler watches the massacre from the hills overlooking the area, and is profoundly affected. He nevertheless is careful to befriend Göth and, through Stern's attention to bribery, he continues to enjoy the SS's support and protection. Eventually, an order arrives from Berlin commanding Göth to exhume and destroy all bodies of those killed in the Krakow Ghetto, dismantle Płaszów, and to ship the remaining Jews to Auschwitz. Schindler persuades Göth to let him keep "his" workers, so that he can move them to a factory in his old home away from the "final solution", now fully underway in Poland. Göth agrees, charging a certain amount for each worker. Schindler and Stern assemble a list of workers that should keep them off the trains to Auschwitz.

"Schindler's List" comprises these "skilled" inmates, and for many of those in Płaszów camp, being included means the difference between life and death. Almost all of the people on Schindler's list arrive safely at the new site, with exception to the train carrying the women, which is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz. Schindler rushes immediately to Auschwitz and stops their gassing. He bribes the camp commander, with a cache of diamonds to spare the women. As the women board the train to the site of the factory, several SS officers attempt to hold some children back and prevent them from leaving. However, Schindler, who is there to personally oversee the boarding, steps in and demands the officers release the children. Once the Schindler women arrive in Zwittau-Brinnlitz, Schindler institutes firm controls on the Nazi guards assigned to the factory, permits the Jews to observe theSabbath, and spends the rest of his fortune bribing Nazi officials. In his home town, he surprises his wife while she's in church during mass, and tells her that she is the only woman in his life. She goes with him to the factory to help out with the inmates. He runs out of money just as the German army surrenders, ending the war in Europe.

As a German Nazi and self-described "profiteer of slave labour", Schindler must flee the oncoming Soviet Red Army. After dismissing the Nazi guards to return to their families, he packs a car in the night, and bids farewell to his workers. They give him a letter explaining he is not a criminal, together with a ring engraved with the quotation, "He who saves the life of one man, saves the world entire." Distraught, Schindler leaves with his wife. The Schindler Jews, having slept outside the factory gates through the night, are awakened by sunlight the next morning. A Soviet soldier arrives and announces to the Jews that they have been liberated. The Jews walk to a nearby town in search of food. As they walk abreast, the frame changes to another of the Schindler Jews in the present day at the grave of Oskar Schindler in Israel. The film ends by showing a procession of now-aged Jews who worked in Schindler's factory, each of whom reverently sets a stone on his grave. The actors portraying the major characters walk hand-in-hand with the people they portrayed, also placing stones on Schindler's grave as they pass. We learn that the survivors and descendants of the approximately 1,100 Jews sheltered by Schindler now number over 6,000. The Jewish population of Poland, once numbering in the millions, was at the time of the film's release approximately 4,000. In a final scene, a man places a rose on the grave, and stands contemplatively over it.

In all, a brilliantly well made movie, with the cast giving the performance of their life time.