Fuga da Sobibor

One of the best films best about the Nazi holocaust,and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps,ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is based on a true story of an heroic uprising in one of these camps of death and horror.Some of the scenes depicted are so horrific that they are very hard to watch,but we are left cheering at the escape at the end as a reaction to the brutalities and inhumanity we witness beforehand.

The cast is excellent,with fine actors such as Alan Arkin,Jack Shepherd,Rutger Hauer on-hand,but a special note should be made of Harmut Becker's performance as the evil,sadistic,murdering monster Sgt Wagner.He is completely without any redeeming features whatsoever,and Becker is totally convincing in the part.I wished this character to come to a enormously nasty end,though he didn't get it;the end credits inform us that Wagner was murdered in a fascist South American country in 1978.

British director Jack Gold is a talented director who made a few decent big-screen films,but his best work was left for TV films like THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT,CATHOLICS,and GOODNIGHT MR TOM.This may be his best.

This movie did a good job of showing what happened and how prisioners coped with life in a nazi death camp. The acting was good and you really get a good depiction of death camp life. However, I would not say that this was better than the masterpiece that SCHINDLERS LIST was.

Oh by the way, this movie didnt show what happened after the prisioners escaped. Everyone left behind at the death camp was executed the next day, some being buried alive because the nazis were in a rush to shut the camp down. The area was then simply planted over with trees so today when people walk on the grounds where Sobibor was, many feet underneath them is the remains of thousands of people.....

It was interesting to read another viewer's comments about this film. I have seen Schindler's List and it didn't touch me anywhere near as deeply as Escape from Sobibor. I first watched it in my teens and it was this film, more than anything I'd seen previously about the Holocaust, which had the greatest impact. The story, of course, is based on truth and is full of painful, heart-wrenching scenes. Nothing has ever presented the Holocaust to me in a more vivid, more graphic, more powerful way.

It's amusing that some people can watch a film and it barely registers with them. Others can see the same film and have a completely different reaction to the experience. But that's people for you, the great variety that is the spice of life. For me, Escape from Sobibor was a very emotional experience and it had a major impact on me. But don't take anyone else's word for it. We all see things differently - go and see it yourself.

I first got this out on video many years back. Being interested in the holocaust from a young age,and having traveled through Poland in the early eighties I got this out of interest.Amazing to think it was done for television and not cinema. I,was on the edge of my seat all the way through,could hardly breath all through the film,did not take my eyes off the screen.The ending is both shattering and uplifting.Even more so knowing the outcome of some of the lives. And how simply fitting a denouement on the end credits the result of the police investigation, give that policeman a medal. On the whole the acting is exceptional, and by that I mean one forgets the actor and sees only the person as real. In fact it has that real life documentary feel to the story. Most satisfying to have seen it before Rutger got semi-famous.

This film has very direct blood and violence but it is never used in a distasteful way. The filmmakers have done a good job with the graphic scenes that also have an emotional impact. Compared to Schindler's List, this film has a more hopeful tone but it has the same amount of tension. There are so many characters shocked by the constant brutality of their situation but they decide to take action instead of resigning themselves. This film is gripping from beginning to end, with incredible tension and stakes.