ma-cortes
The village's dumb named Scholomo(Abelanski) comes running and shouting that the Jews from near little towns are being deported towards unknown locations. That same night the Jewish council of wise men (presided by Clement Harari) is reunited to find a manner to save the villagers. They determine that people will be shielded from the horrors around them and somehow finds a way to do it. Then Scholome proposes an original idea, organize a false deportation train so which they can flee the Nazis passing the Russian frontier and escape to Palestine. Some Jewish are dressed in German uniforms(Rufus) and others posing as fake prisoners. Their efforts sometimes are pure fantasy , though with ruse they pull off the feat to keep the faith on their dreams.This is a story about love, war and sacrifice , well starred and directed. Extraordinary movie with comedy upon an irrepressible group who refuses to ever give in to adversity and some moment is spoken in Yiddish and German language with subtitles. A beguiling and unique fable that celebrates the human spirit and the freedom. This amusing picture contains some of ¨Fiddler on the roof¨(Norman Jewison,1971), including violin performance , ¨Life is beautiful¨ (Roberto Benigni ,1997) and ¨The last train¨(Joseph Vilsmaier, 2006). Excellent performances by all cast, as Harari as veteran rabbi trying to preserve Jewish heritage against growing odds, Rufus as Jew posing as Nazi officer, Michel Muller as Jewish infected with the fast-spreading germ of communism, and Agatha La Fontaine as gorgeous youngster, among them. Emotive and hearty score melodically performed by Goran Bregovic, Emir Kusturica's usual. Director Radu Mihaileanu tirelessly maintains the humorous ingenuity and shapes simultaneously hilarious and haunting comedy. Rating : Better than average. Well worth watching.
charlesdias
This is one of the best humor movies I've ever seen. It's really hard to mix a war plot with nice fine humor. Some try it but the result is very bad. This movie is an exception, it's great and funny.I think the soul of this movies is it near naive humor. There is no that boring kind of "intelligent and cool humor for intelligent and cool people". It's plain humor works fine.But don't think this movie is just humor because it has a humanitarian story bellow the humorous cover that touches the heart. It's about human beings doing their best to escape from death.The soundtrack of this movie is great. I love the music, it's fabulous.It's a great movie worth of seeing.
macias-5
I am sick when I see such scenario -- Nazis bad, Bolsheviks good. Riiiiight -- it looks like in Western Europe nobody really cares that people were murdered in Soviet Union, and not in one or two death camps. There were established whole "lands" of death camps.Nobody would survive "the escape", because people coming from German side were treated as spies (even prisoners of war). I realize that the move is a fiction, but it should not insult the memory of the people who died in Soviet Union.Soviet reality ordeal still waits for its director brave enough to make a movie showing that Stalin, Trocki, Kamieniew, Dzierzynski, etc. were not just politicians, but insane monsters beyond imagination. That there were a lot of Jews in Soviet authorities but also Jews were victims (for example Anti-Fascist Front Leaders, murdered on an order by Stalin).There is well known story about two trains full of Jews meeting in Brzesc (German-Soviet border in 1939). One train was going from Germany to Soviet Union, the second from the Soviet Union to Germany. And Jews from both trains were escaping and both were laughing of stupidity of the others.The plot was easy to fix -- train going to Switzerland instead of Soviet Union, believable, more historically accurate... So another attempt of Soviet glorification or just a stupidity of the director?
eetstatik
Totally anti-semetic. The Jews in the village are seen as being idiots, liars, and squabblers. The comedy for the most part is dull, the directing rather unclever, the emotions nil, the character development less, and worst of all it even seems to harbor, intentional or not, resentment against Jews, even though it was written and directed by a Jew: as i have already mentioned the Jews are seen as children,but the exploration of guilt of pretending to be the enemy is barely, almost tacked on really, explored. At one point a character even says "Our Nazis are better than the other Nazis. Our Nazis are beautiful." It might have been the writer/director realized how anti-semetic the script was and threw in some heavy handed symbolism to fix it, but failed. But the worst thing isn't the movie, but the fans. When you dislike a movie like this they tend to label you as corporate shill, as uneducated about film, as falling prey to Life Is Beautiful and its "fake," emotions. Sad you can't point out how bad a movie is when it's lesser known or underground, because so many nowadays fall pray to the belief is it's less known, it's somehow better. I have news for you, that's practically the same mentality of thinking the bigger the budget the better the script. They are both equally shallow, just the former philosophy is harder to criticize because everyone wants to be a "rebel" and be underground. So say what you want about Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful, you don't have to love them, just don't be think this is a masterpiece in comparison.
AD
