“A film Unfinished” Review by Elana Carson
“A film unfinished” is a Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was discovered by German archivists after the war and was used by scholars and historians as a flawed but authentic record of ghetto life. Shot over 30 days in May 1942 this hour and a half long silent film showed random scenes of Jews enjoying various luxuries with images of profound suffering. The film was supposed to be used to show the world what a good life the Jews had. However, most of the luxurious scenes were staged and the footage of the true pain and anguish was meant to be cut out of the film later on. The footage really shows the true misery that the Jews went through. Most of the clips show starving, homeless people with no hair and a lack of clothing. The people are dirty, disgusting and hopeless, the children are begging for food and being held at gunpoint when trying to sneak a small bite. The German film crew that was sent to tape this footage of the Jews had no idea as to why they were even filming it. But even if they knew what the true intent of this film was, would it have stopped them? Throughout the movie there are 5 survivors giving a commentary of what they remember about the Ghetto. That was very impacting to hear the truth come straight from these survivors. Throughout the movie, I was cringing at the sight of naked men and women being forced at gunpoint into a ritual bath; the Nazis paying no attention to the horrid living qualities of the Jews and the millions of lives that were lost throughout the Holocaust. The silence of the movie was very powerful. The fact is that you don’t need words or sound to see the hurt, anguish, and suffering of these people. The movie will bring you to tears as you travel back to the sinful nature of man and just how evil we can be to our brothers and sisters. In this movie, the survivors really spoke for us all.
“A film unfinished” is a Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was discovered by German archivists after the war and was used by scholars and historians as a flawed but authentic record of ghetto life. Shot over 30 days in May 1942 this hour and a half long silent film showed random scenes of Jews enjoying various luxuries with images of profound suffering. The film was supposed to be used to show the world what a good life the Jews had. However, most of the luxurious scenes were staged and the footage of the true pain and anguish was meant to be cut out of the film later on. The footage really shows the true misery that the Jews went through. Most of the clips show starving, homeless people with no hair and a lack of clothing. The people are dirty, disgusting and hopeless, the children are begging for food and being held at gunpoint when trying to sneak a small bite. The German film crew that was sent to tape this footage of the Jews had no idea as to why they were even filming it. But even if they knew what the true intent of this film was, would it have stopped them? Throughout the movie there are 5 survivors giving a commentary of what they remember about the Ghetto. That was very impacting to hear the truth come straight from these survivors. Throughout the movie, I was cringing at the sight of naked men and women being forced at gunpoint into a ritual bath; the Nazis paying no attention to the horrid living qualities of the Jews and the millions of lives that were lost throughout the Holocaust. The silence of the movie was very powerful. The fact is that you don’t need words or sound to see the hurt, anguish, and suffering of these people. The movie will bring you to tears as you travel back to the sinful nature of man and just how evil we can be to our brothers and sisters. In this movie, the survivors really spoke for us all.
6 comments:
you bring up a good point that even with out sound it was easy to see the pain, and i like your last phrase.
Really good review Elana. I like how brought up the fact that all of the bad images in the film were accidently not taken out and this film ends up showing us what the ghetto was truly like.
It's funny to me that although the Germans forced the Jews to stage various scenes from their "lives", people could see that they were still suffering. I'm not exactly sure how you could think that a group of hundreds of thousands of people being forced into a small space would be living a life of luxury. Very sad film.
It is true that people can very evil. The holocaust is probably one the biggest examples of this in human history.
I like how you talked about how powerful the slience was during the movie. I agree the silence was powerful.
you found a good picture for this response. I feel so sad for the Jews. I dont understand how people can be so crul??
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