The Devil's Arithmetic

I think the movie is even better than the book, and the book is excellent. The movie changed Hannah and Rivkeh to be in their mid-teens rather than only about 11 as in the "Young Adult" novel. This might have been done for an "inside-the-box" reason, namely so that the director could work with more mature performers. But whatever the reason, the change was for the better, as it made the story more realistic to me -- I can "buy" that 16-year-olds could survive without parents in a concentration camp, but not 11-year-olds!

I expected a good performance from Kirsten Dunst, who is known for serious work. But the one who was a revelation was Brittany Murphy, more associated with (mediocre) light comedy (such as "Summer Catch" and "Just Married"). With dark hair, dark eyes and a believable Polish accent, she utterly disappears into the role of Rivkeh.

To answer a question posed by a previous poster, about why the great-aunt changed her name ... one reason, not obvious to the casual viewer, comes out of Jewish tradition. It is an old custom for a Jew, after having narrowly escaped death, to take a completely different first name. The (somewhat superstitious) belief is that you are trying to fool the Angel of Death; if you have a different name now, he won't realize it's you and therefore won't try to take you again! The other two reasons are more obvious: She was honoring her friend who sacrificed her life for her, and she was beginning a new life in America (many Jews and others took new names when they immigrated).

The point of this film was not as much to be "great art" as it was to educate people about the Holocaust. In that sense, I think that many posters here are unfairly blasting it, holding it up to some high artistic standard. Believe it or not, there are many in this world, especially younger people, who have not clue one about the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. This film would be an excellent introduction (along with other films such as Diary of Anne Frank) for young people into this very real and recent historical nightmare. To read comments here about how bad the German accents were and how the Germans deserve better than this, lead me to suspect the sincerity of those posting them.

I had read about this film on a site about time-travel movies ( my favorite type of films) and had been waiting for it to come out on DVD. This has happened in the USA, and also in the UK and Belgium. Not so in France, however, where the film is TOTALLY unknown, a strange state of affairs for a country which is only now trying to atone for its treatment of its Jewish population of 60 years ago, whereas in most other countries, all that is past history.

I have read other comments about this film and there seem to be equal amounts of negative and positive comments. For my part, I firmly come out IN FAVOUR of the film. Picture quality is excellent, so is the acting. I do have qualms on certain issues ( the camps seem too clean and too small, the Nazis don't seem evil enough ) but this is a very subjective judgement, and all really depends on what the spectator is "looking for". Obviously he/she who prefers "the more sordid and the more violent (and therefore supposedly the more realistic - though that's a question for debate ) the better" will be disappointed. True, the film is somewhat sanitized. But this shortcoming, if it can be termed as such, is secondary. I see the film not as a documentary on the holocaust, nor a piece of anti-Nazi propaganda, but rather the journey of a young lady thru time into a fantasy world where she is "taught" the importance of her heritage. Other people have made the point, which I agree on, that the film is an "efficient" way of introducing the holocaust to children who may be ignorant of it - and on that score alone justifies its' having been made.

Obviously there is a moralistic tone "you-don't-care-about-your heritage-so-I'm-going-to-teach-you-a-lesson-you-won't-forget' but beyond that it's interesting to see how the young protagonist passes from modern life and body tattoos to completely different surroundings and somehow adapts to it. It is like someone being suddenly whisked from this life, for example, blown up in an explosion, and immediately reincarnating another body in another time frame. Of course, each and every one of us would react differently to this situation, but the film on that level at least seems highly plausible though obviously no one really knows what the experience would be like.

The film then, should not be taken as a documentary on the holocaust (there are plenty of those around with far more realistic (and gruesome) pictures). But it is a journey into fantasy and will doubtless please the school of thought that maintains that one's heritage is all-important to be able to appreciate one's life today.

The fact that in 2005 we are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camps of death may have something to to with this film suddenly being issued on DVD in a certain number of countries.

I have yet to read the book, but I can say that this movie is wonderful. This modern day teenager is taken back into the past to the time of the Holocaust, taken to a Nazi death camp, and experiences what really happened. I dont think many of us truly realized what it meant to be a Jew back then. Jews were treated as 'pets' in those camps, being branded, 'owned', and forced to work, which basically makes them slaves. I knew about the Holocaust before this movie, and I knew it was so terrible, but the reality of it never really hit me until this movie. But now I think I understand so much more. And I'm only 13. It shows the Jews when they first get to the camp, when they are forced to take off their clothes, put on other clothes which include a special coat with the Star or David on it, have their hair cut off, and get branded with a number on their arm for identification. And then we see how they lived, what they feared, and worst of all, how they died. I'd have to say the ending is what really hit me the most. I wont tell you what happened at the ending, but I will say, if you watch this movie with all your concentration and heart, you will feel a feeling you've probably never experienced, because you've probably never felt the real pain of torture and horror. And that it what this movie expresses.

An unusual take on the story of the Holocaust though rather pointless.Same as the title-what is the Devils arithmetic? The film will teach you nothing about the Holocaust. As a time travel story it works to an extent in that it concludes by bringing the girl back to her own time as if its all been a dream. Obviously its full of artistic license-the Germans all speak English and it roughly follows what we already know about the ghettoes which were to lead to the camps. I don't think anyone could be unaware of what happened in Germany in the 40s but comparing this to the various documentaries on individual POW camps or classic movies like Schindlers List and its hardly in the same class. As a time travel movie its like Back to the Future or Peggy Sue got married without the music.