The Eichmann Show

One of my earliest memories is the Eichmann trial. Watching the film I now realise that it started on my sixth birthday. We talked about it in the playground built up an image of a monster. In London at the time we were surrounded by bomb sites and so his capture and trial was big news.

I remember vividly seeing the filmed news reports the film depicts and the shock of how ordinary this monster looked.

A good film and worth watching.

I have watched this several times, each viewing leaves me silent and reflective. Having just finished another viewing and comparing it to today's American political climate, I wonder how much we really learned. Can we take these lessons and reteach them today, or has history become too irrelevant in this world of greed?

The trial and story here it in itself incredibly compelling and tragic. The real film they used within the movie was so well done and brought an element that reenactment never could .

The focus of the film was threefold. First - the atrocities of the holocaust, second the power of media and third weather or not man can inherently be evil.

The first theme is well accomplished and presented in a respectful way . The idea that surviving Jews had been left marginalized and underrepresented for so long was a fantastic undercurrent.

The power of media is also presented well but might be slightly more hidden . This was really the justification for this particular focus , if you know this going in and look for it , you find it and realize there is so much power in what was done to show and document this trial in the way it was .

The third theme, although important is not presented as clearly or as well and I think gets in the way at times of the second theme . The dialogue when Leo is thinking of leaving helps point out the overarching goal of the film , but his obsession with "breaking " Eichmann on a personal level sometimes gets in the way.

Important film, great premise and solid acting . Not done as well as it could have been but absolutely worth the time .

This is a brilliant BBC production about the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who escaped to Argentina after the Second World War, and who was responsible for facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II.

The film is superbly cast, and tells the story from the perspective of the production crew responsible for televising the trial in Jerusalem in 1961. We get to see the logistics involved in bringing the trial to TV screens around the world, and the problems the production team face along the way.

Of course the biggest story in a production like this is the horror of the holocaust, and how a man can be responsible for such evil. The Eichmann Show is yet another reminder of this horror, and is well worth a couple of hours of anyones time.

8/10

This BBC film was based on the actual event that took place in the early 60s, Jerusalem. About televising the trial from a courtroom, which was the first ever documentary series to broadcast. One of a top Nazi officer, Adolf Eichmann, who fled during the end of world war two and settled down in the South America, but brought back with the help of Mossad to Israel to face the war crime charges. The movie won't demonstrate all those in the picture, but it begins with the television production house preparing to shoot the important television event in the history. So the show begins, but a boring first half and the next half is where all the interesting stuffs happen.

In my prediction this movie with the powerful contents would have easily beaten the 'The Imitation Game', if it was produced grandly and commercialised a bit of narration for the worldwide market. The real video clips of the trial were merged into the movie and that gave a strong effect which allows to realise how those actual occurrences has taken place. Actually, there are some uncensored cuts, which were shocking and disturbing. So pretty much like a semi-documentary, but due to the majority of movie clips that shot with actors and in the sets, it feels like a TV movie as it should be.

"While he watches the footage, we'll be watching him. Only then will we see the real Eichmann."

The performances were ordinary, because the screenplay preferred the main event to display, not the characters and their lifestyle. That makes it is not a biographical picture, though both the lead men were pretty impressive. We had seen many world war 2 and related to it movies, but this one was a different. Because of the story was set 15 years after the end of war. Simple movie, no twists, no developments, but reveals the facts from a different dimension. Because of this show, people around the world and filmmakers understood the cruelty of the Nazi prison camp. The movies those came afterwards about this war were inspired by the events that discussed in the courtroom. So if you are planning for this, expect it to be as what the title says, not a bit more or less.

8/10