Movie Monday

Yes, it is foreign.
Yes, it is based on a true story.

This film is based on the semi-autobiographical novel (Sorstalanság) by the Nobel Prize winning author, Imre Kertesz, which was published in 1975. The author also wrote the film's screenplay.

It is a film that deals with the Holocaust-
But not in the typical film fashion of dealing with the horrors of the event.

It is something different and, to the outside observer, more disturbing and odd.
This film attempts to show a survivor's view that there were facets of the experience itself that can be described as beautiful.

It shows that these situations bring out the worst AND the very best in people.

Ironically, I also had Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" in my netflix bundle this week.
I wanted to focus more on the lesser known film but both have a similar tone.

"The Pianist" is based on Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir of survival in the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi occupation.

Both films are well worth the time and will give a different point of view. Roman Polanski was himself a survivor of the Holocaust.

Additionally, the work that the film is based upon is thought to have been one of the most detailed and accurate because it was written so soon after the events. The book was published in 1945 under the title, Śmierć Miasta (Death of a City). Very few copies of the book were printed and it was soon suppressed by the communist Polish authorities.

In 1998, Szpilman’s son Andrzej republished his father’s work, Das wunderbare Überleben (The miraculous survival). It was later published in English as The Pianist.