Ghetto

Very good work, i must confess i've not seen another work of this director beside this movie.

The good. The main characters are very well shaped, the artist crew, it-s so real, i have several friends that are actors, dancers, and singers, and the environment is so alike, i can see the director really knows how it is, how it feels. The Nazi guy, is the main actor, so sensitive and so unsure of what he is really doing, he was just 22 for god's sake. The end is magnificent the final performance of the main actor!!! the masacre, and at the end, there is no need of act, there is no need of keep the appearances... he could really choose what he wanted, her music and left the teather for the actors entrance.

The bad. When the girl singed looked fake, she did not breath as a singer does, she should have worked on making that look real.

This movie has apparently not been released in the US, but I found it available on DVD in Beijing, of all places. It takes place during the war in the ghetto in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania and shows the brutality of war, with a Nazi leader forcing Jews to perform as actors, and using the Jewish police to carry out orders. It is somewhat melodramatic with some comedic elements, but overwhelmingly brutal. I don't know is this is based on a true story or fictional. The acting was generally good, with some high and low points. There have been better holocaust films, but as one of the genre, this one is not too bad. The film was in English, but was likely dubbed. Amazingly it was a Lithuanian-German production, which in itself is somewhat ground breaking.

I saw this movie in Mexico City, of all places, on Cinemax. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I think that's why I liked it so much. You were never sure who to trust; who was good and who was bad (though, obviously, the Nazis were easy to categorize as the bad guys). The movie is really about Gens and the position he is in between the Nazis and the Jews. It really isn't clear whether he does the right thing; indeed, it isn't clear that there IS a right thing to do. In this way I thought the movie was more three-dimensional than "The Pianist," in which we know that our hero is an innocent victim. Here, Gens could be an innocent victim or he could be a ruthless opportunist. Or he could be both. In my opinion, that is what makes a character interesting.

What impressed me the most about this movie, however, was the music. Please, if anyone could find a soundtrack for it, let me know. It was a great combination of opera, swing, and tango, and captured the passion and drama of the times. While it could be argued that "The Pianist" was, in Adrian Brody's own words, about how a man's love of music saved him during horrible times, that movie had almost NO music at all. This movie is a much better illustration of the theme of music and art being mankind's salvation.

To me, a good movie is one that makes me think, one that rattles around in my head long after it ends. This movie passes the test, as I've been thinking of it on and off for several days. Yes, it is an odd blend of humor, drama, and horror, but I thought its uniqueness and depth made it a great film.

A different and unusual take on the holocaust. "Ghetto" is almost a dark comedy-musical, if you had to put it into a category ( if such a category exists...) I don't think it's fair to compare it to "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List", because this film really does it's own thing. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then I wouldn't really consider this a mainstream film. There were elements which really brought Yiddish theater to mind, in a clumsily beautiful and poignant way. I was appropriately entertained, moved and depressed, so I enjoyed this movie very much, but again, not everyone would want a movie to elicit that combination of emotions. There were some very beautiful scenes, in terms of cinematography, and despite some distracting, less than natural lip-synching, I found the music really beautiful. This film is worth watching, as long as you do so with an open mind and an appreciation for originality.

First of all, I had to say if you don't finish it you would never feel its goodness. Pianist described the Warsaw Ghetto from a pure view of a Jew. Schudler's list described from a view of a German with Humanity. Both are not enough. This movie shows a German (Nazi) Officer's mental struggling between evil and an artist. Between ghost and human. The same time, a Jew police of Ghetto also struggles mentally the same way, protecting and saving Jewish lives by killing and taking Jewish lives. If you were educated for a long time that the Jew are not human beings, and your nobel duty is to vanish them, but finally you found what you have been taught and told may be wrong. How pain you would be? The same thing as if you are a Christian, you found the Gospel of Juda is true?

When you reach the point, the Jew Police is taking "the third child" from each pair of parents for killing while assigning "the second child" to some parents with only one. You will feel what a "job" he is doing. And I can never imagine if I have a job like this.

Strong Recommended.