Schindler's List (1993) * * * *

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall

Oskar Schindler was a failed businessman who saw an opportunity in early World War II Poland to enrich himself and the Nazi regime.     He started a business manufacturing pots and pans for the war effort, using Jews as labor.    By the end of the war, Schindler was flat broke, and saved over 1,100 Jews from certain death.    His biggest lament was that he felt he didn't do enough to save more lives.      At what point did Schindler switch his goal from profit to saving lives?    Was that always his mission or did he simply follow his better nature at long last?     Schindler's List never explains this and its enigmatic hero is a big reason why watching it is a powerful experience.      I think if Schindler were a self-righteous blowhard who preached about doing the right thing to anyone who would listen, he would've been a bore.     He would've been like countless other movie heroes who do things and then explains why he did them, as if the audience couldn't have figured that out for themselves.    

Schindler's List is a study of one person's act of good against an evil Nazi machine.     Certainly Schindler couldn't save every Jew in Poland from death, but he did save 1,100 of them.     He ensured that there would be more generations to come for these people who otherwise would've perished.      How he accomplishes this involves a great deal of scheming, payoffs, and his trusted Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Kingsley) who understands what is happening while keeping his head down and not asking questions.      He faces little resistance from the local slave labor camp commandant Amon Goeth (Fiennes) because he is being enriched too.     Schindler is taking Jews off his hands for 8-10 hours a day and he's getting paid for it.     Who's to argue with such an arrangement?

Goeth is not enigmatic in the least.    He is a psychopathic killer who shoots Jews from his balcony for sport.    He follows no logic nor reason when he punishes people for supposed infractions.     Stern tells Schindler about Goeth killing 25 Jews randomly because one tried to escape.     Schindler opposes these acts, but knows he needs Goeth's cooperation in order to accomplish his mission.     He manages to briefly talk Goeth out of killing Jews by saying, "Having power, but not using it, is sometimes the real power."     Goeth briefly heeds this advice but his psychopathy takes over and he kills a young boy who is unable to clean the stains from his bathtub.     Fiennes received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work.    He never reaches for effect or becomes a cackling maniac.     We sense his homicidal tendencies are part of his nature and the war provides him an excuse to kill without consequences.      He is conflicted, however, over his feelings for his maid Helen (Embeth Davidtz), a young Jewish woman he loves despite his hatred for her people.     He reconciles his conflict by abusing her, which is all too clear to Schindler.     "If you meant nothing to him, he would just kill you," Schindler tells a frightened Helen.     Goeth's hesitation to release her when Schindler moves his factory to Czechoslovakia reveals his true feelings.

At a crucial point, Schindler instructs Stern to compose a list of the Jews who work in his factory whose lives he will buy.    The Nazis are only too happy to accomodate Schindler because the war is nearing its end and they "will need transportable wealth".     Because Schindler is a great salesman who wears silk suits and is seemingly well-connected, they don't question his veracity or his motives.     "This list is absolute good," Stern tells Schindler.     He understands that all too well.
Liam Neeson was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.     The power in his performance relies heavily on the early setup in which we seem to know his goals and motives, but then he turns the tables in midstream.     He is a con artist who convinces everyone he is powerful and has the connections to make things happen.     He is always able to provide gifts "as a token of gratitude" to powerful Nazis whenever he needs them the most.    Schindler is like a magician who is able to pull the rabbit out of his hat at just the right time to avoid detection.      It's a tricky balancing act which Neeson pulls off masterfully.      In the opening moments of the film, Schindler secures financing for his factory strictly by showing up at a nightclub frequented by Nazi officers and ingratiating himself with an endless flow of cigars, women,  and champagne for all.      At first, no one knows who he is.    By the end of the night, everyone wants to know him. 

Schindler's List is over three hours long and at no point does it drag.    Spielberg shot the film in black & white, which is appropriate and uniform with practically every Holocaust documentary ever made which uses black & white footage of Holocaust atrocities.     There is one use of color, aside from the film's final scenes, which depict an anonymous little girl finding her way through the streets as the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto transpires.     This little girl captures Schindler's attention as he views the scene from afar.    I believe this provides the inspiration for him to do something to help reverse the eradication of Polish Jews.     Spielberg depicts many horrors perpetrated on the Jews, but these act as the catalyst for Schindler's actions.         Who knows how or why millions of Germans became murderers or accomplices to murder and seemingly went against their better natures.    Spielberg doesn't attempt to answer that question, likely because there is no answer.     How could there be?

The final few minutes of the film reveal that the Jews Schindler saved flourished and prospered in the aftermath of World War II.     We see the real Jews, sometimes accompanied by the actors who played them or by their families, placing stones on the gravestone of Oskar Schindler, who died in 1974.     The stones are placed as a rememberance of a man they knew only as "Herr Direktor" who did more to save Jews than entire countries did.      Oskar Schindler resisted the Nazi death machine using all of his financial and personal resources to do so.     He's an unsung hero to most, except for those he saved.