New to the business and inexperienced, Schlinder hires Itzhak Stern(Ben Kingsley), a Jew accountant, who knows the tricks of the trade and has contacts in the black markets. Schlinder hires the Polish Jews as labourers because they cost less than the Polish Catholics. The Polish Jews are not given wages but the money is paid to the SS. I.
As Amon Goth(Ralph Fiennes), an SS captain takes charge, he orders liquidation of a certain part of the ghetto. That is when the massacre begins. It is a very depressing and perturbing scene as people are killed left and right. From children to adults to the aged, everyone who seems uncooperative or resisting, is killed instantly. Schindler watches this from a hill and It affects him.
As time goes by, Schinder lets go of his main money-making motive and the only reason he keeps the factory and the work going, is to save the Jews from the mouth of murder. With the help of his loyal accountant, Itzhal Stern, they manage to do a human act by saving every Jew that they can, by hiring them, instead of watching them being sent to concentration camps, to be killed! . However an order from Berlin arrives, ordering SS Captain, Amon Goth to dismantle the operation and kill every Jew at Krakov. Schindler, alarmed yet wise, manages to sway and bribe Goth. He gently argues that he needs these "skilled workers" in the factory in his home-town so he suggests that they move with him as hiring new workers and training them would mean spending unnecessary money and time. Goth agrees but charges a very heavy sum for every worker. Thus Schindler begins writing the LIST!
Itzhak Stern helps him prepare the list of the "skilled workers" who are to move with him to a safer place. Schindler tries to get everybody out of the concentration camp.
The movie is about one-man army, Oskar Schindler. Of course, Itzhak Stern helps him with most of the work and the duo save many Jewish lives. I have to say that I cannot imagine a man, a German so heroic, so as to risk all his money, more importantly, his life, only to save the Jews! The movie does portray Schindler beyond human and too-good-to-be-true but I suppose when a catastrophe like War befalls on humanity, men become beyond human(too good or too evil!).
It is a heart-wrenching tale and the entire movie is in a Black & White mode. However, the massacre scene at the ghetto has a little girl walking around as bullets fly everywhere. The Red Coat that she's wearing is the only object in color. Similarly the candle flame is also colored in the first scene as the movie begins. In the colorless frames, these certain colors added to particular images highlight the significance and the metaphor of the Holocaust. The last scene where the real survivors along with the actors who portray them, visit Schindler's grave is in color mode.
The movie is directed by Stephen Speilberg and even though It runs a little over three hours, there is not a single speck of boredom in it. Recipient of seven Academy Awards and numerous other prestigious awards, Schindler's List is definitely one movie to watch before you die. There are few movies which make you think about your actions...Schindler's List is one of them. No matter how many movies are made, showing the cruelty and futility of War, so many of us fail to understand Why or How could something as terrible as the Holocaust have happened!
This film is only a short trailer of what happened back in the late 1930s and early 1940s...It is a story of a good man who saved so many Jews; I wonder If I will be able to watch a film that only tells the brutal part of the Holocaust. Watch this one...to understand that there are things in this world that you cannot control and you could be a reason for a life that is lost; But watch it more, so you understand better that the things you can control, you should and "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire!!!"
