Kapò: Uma História do Holocausto

Although it features two French leads (Laurent Terzieff and Emmanuelle Riva) ,"Kapo" has disappeared from the French dictionaries of films whereas lots of duds are included.

With the exceptions of "Nuit et Brouillard" (which was an exceptional documentary ) and Wanda Jakubowska 's "ostatni etap' (1947) there were few movies which at the time broached the concentration camps subject(the last scenes of Dmytryk's "young lions" ,1958)

Susan Strasberg was impressive ,mainly in the first hour though the evolution of her character is not always believable.Besides,her relationship with Sascha weakens the plot .

Emmanuelle Riva almost outshines Strasberg,maybe because she was a more experimented actress (she was featured in Resnais's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" ) and her scene when she is translating the German words in a voice chocked with emotion may be the strongest in the whole movie.

The "potato" scene is also revealing.I remember what Simone Veil ,a former French minister (secretary) (and herself a former prisoner in a concentration camp),said after watching the last episode of "Holocaust " (the seventies miniseries) : "in the camps ,people were not as helpful ,as kind ,as compassionate as they are in the film" ."Kapo" shows a very harsh world where the women are almost always fighting against their mates:that's the story of Edith /Nicole .

When it was released ,the movie was trashed by Jacques Rivette because of a tracking after Riva 's death ;at the time Nouvelle vague= intellectual dictatorship.Although defended by the Italian masters (including Visconti),the movie was cursed .The IMDb users have restored it to favor.

As with my recent viewing of Bernhard Wicki's THE BRIDGE (1959), I was introduced to the film under review via a still from it adorning the large and lavishly-illustrated "War Movies" tome I used to pore over as a kid; actually, apart from a recent Italian TV screening, I only recall a solitary broadcast of it back then one Friday night – this was also true of Pontecorvo's best-known work, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1965), which I did catch much later on TV and subsequently on the big-screen in London – but, given the adult subject matter, I passed on it. Having now finally caught up with the movie (another title to make the "Wonders In The Dark" all-time top 3.000 list) after all these years, as part of my ongoing Oscar marathon, I must say that it is one of the most miserable viewing experiences I have ever had!

The fall of the Third Reich in mid-1945 brought an unsuspecting world face to face with the shocking truth of Nazi concentration camps; this led to the infamous Nuremberg trials of 1947 and, perhaps inevitably, cinematic depictions of this horrific genocide. The most celebrated of these are Alain Resnais's harrowing short NIGHT AND FOG (1955; detailing the findings at the Auschwitz camp) and Steven Spielberg's Oscar-laden SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993; dealing with a real-life German industrialist who hid thousands of persecuted Jews among his factory employees). KAPO' – being the name given by the captors to the favoured one within each barracks whom they have selected to be its warden – might well be the very first feature-length movie on this theme; while clearly evoking the "Neorealist" school in its unremitting bleakness and dispassionate viewpoint, what is most surprising – in hindsight – is that, in many ways, this also anticipates the reprehensible "Women In Prison" and Nazisploitation subgenres in Euro-Cult fare of the late 1960s and 1970s!

In a somewhat sensationalistic touch, the protagonist who becomes the titular Nazi lackey is a Jew passed off by the camp medic as a French girl after having witnessed her parents' oblivious march towards the gas chamber. She is played by American Susan Strasberg: though we are asked to believe that she is a virginal 14 year-old who soon becomes the young officers' favourite 'lay' (among them Gianni Garko), the actress is effective in delineating the character's trajectory from doe-eyed innocent to callous parasite (even if it seems this is primarily done in order to appease her personal hunger) to hopeless romantic (she becomes enamoured of rebellious Russian POW Laurent Terzieff) to resigned martyr (the heroine's elite position in the camp makes her the ideal, albeit endangered, candidate to switch off the electrically-charged barbed-wire fence that would precipitate a mass escape attempt). Interestingly enough, Strasberg had just been passed over in recreating her Broadway role for George Stevens' screen rendition of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1959).

As expected, the supporting female cast is carefully chosen so as to encompass a wide variety of types among both victims and collaborationists: most notable, however, are Emmanuelle Riva (as the one who initially takes Strasberg under her wing but is then shunned by the new Kapo' and ends up committing suicide via electrocution) and Didi Perego (a Silver Ribbon award winner for Best Supporting Actress as the statuesque leader of the inmates whose outspokenness eventually leads to her being gunned down in cold blood). Pontecorvo (whom I saw at the 2004 Venice Film Festival during a screening of the Michelangelo Antonioni/Wong Kar-Wai/Steven Soderbergh-directed anthology EROS and has since passed away) did not have a prolific career, but his place in the annals of World Cinema is assured on the strength of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS alone; incidentally, he is also credited with collaborating on Carlo Rustichelli's brooding score. As for co-director Montaldo (whose contribution, whatever it entailed, has never been given its due), he was invited over here a couple of years ago to introduce a number of his films screened as part of some Italian festival – but these were oddly scheduled during the mornings, thus making it impossible for me to attend!

I was not previously aware of this gem. I found it on TCM after it had already been on for about 10 minutes. I kept thinking that the lead actress looked just like SUSAN STRASBERG & for good reason. It was. The fact that it was foreign with sub-titles threw me initially. Very realistic, almost raw, which was surprising considering that this movie was made in 1959.

STRASBERG as 'Nicole' works her way up through a concentration camp to become the woman in charge of her fellow prisoners. Strong language, violent situations, but this is a story about WWII, not the 'Enchanted Forest'. Good storyline, good direction, & a terrific performance by SUSAN STRASBERG that was all the more admirable when you realize that she was all of 20,21 when she made this.

If somebody would like to see what was a nazi prison, one has to see this movies. It showed with realism the nature of cruelty by nazis and the ways they used some of their prisoners to watch the movement of the rest and to combat effectively any possible plot against them. Pontecorvo is a director with a few films, but all of them always show real facts of the history, and this film is not an exception

I've never really liked holocaust flicks because they get well, usually made so that the dumbest of the dumb to 'get it.' Kapo is just a movie that shows, not tells, which of course makes the best story. Thanks to TCM for playing this gem that I'll buy on DVD as soon as it comes out. I'd never even heard of it, and I have seen a LOT of flicks.

Susan Strasburg does an incredible job as Nicollete / Edith. Her transformation from shell-shocked victim to cynical survivor is absolutely gripping. The tension in the movie builds to nearly unbearable level and the end simply leaves you scooping your jaw off the floor.

This is the type of movie I sorely needed after going on a loooong dry spell of celluloid garbage. Why this movie isn't famous, I have no idea, but it should be.