Schindler (1983)

Aside from capitalising on an astonishing selection of (sometimes quite harrowing) archive, this documentary also presents us with an insightful array of interviews with many of the survivors of the Nazi persecution of the Jews during the 1940s. Abhorred by the activities of the National Socialists, local industrialist Oskar Schindler manages to convince the authorities that using the Jewish population as disposable manual labour was a better use of their numbers than just sending them to a concentration or labour camps. For a while, this served a dual function in supporting the war machine in a convincing fashion for their oppressors but it also enabled Schindler to systematically smuggle hundreds of people to safety. As the tide of the war started to turn, his abilities - and his own personal security - became compromised as desperation increasingly took over and their situations became even more precarious. The poignant contributions from those who survived adds huge richness to a story of unbelievable cruelty and horrors with some penetrating commentaries supporting the plentiful and potently brutal imagery. What’s also quite interesting here is that it doesn’t paint a picture of Schindler as some sort of saint. Questions are asked about his motivation at the beginning of the war and occasionally throughout as the end of the war exposed him to considerable risk and he had to rely on his erstwhile employees to ensure his escape from the approaching Soviets. His closing years are discussed, though not really illustrated, and they make for really rather sad watching as drink and depression took it’s toll on a man largely reduced to poverty and generous hand-outs. This is an effective and affecting film that tells real stories of real people from their own mouths, with a minimum of speculative third party or narrative extrapolation, and it asks plenty of questions about fear, terror and complicity too.