How do you portray something accurately on film, so awful, that should you succeed, it would be unwatchable?
Naked Among Wolves is a remarkably powerful story, which nestles close to that line, without ever crossing it.
It's not however, the horror that remains in the mind as the film concludes, but the fate of the individuals portrayed, for which you care enormously. A reminder the horrors of war and genocide happen to individuals, not to numbers.
Like Schindler's List, it's a story of the Holocaust, but also of the other victims of Nazi persecution.
Unlike Schindler's List, this isn't a story just about heroism vs evil, but of the choices ordinary people have to make in extra-ordinary circumstances, simply to survive. It's easy to be noble from a distance. Not so easy when it's your life, and those you love, or that of strangers, even against a common enemy.
Is it better than Schindler's List, against which it's bound to be compared?
I think it is. I feels more genuine, almost like a fly-on-the-wall account without actors, such is the convincing portrayal of individual suffering, and of the last vestiges of hope, without which, death is certain.
Naked Among Wolves deserves a higher profile and wider distribution, even 4 years after it's release.
Naked Among Wolves is a remarkably powerful story, which nestles close to that line, without ever crossing it.
It's not however, the horror that remains in the mind as the film concludes, but the fate of the individuals portrayed, for which you care enormously. A reminder the horrors of war and genocide happen to individuals, not to numbers.
Like Schindler's List, it's a story of the Holocaust, but also of the other victims of Nazi persecution.
Unlike Schindler's List, this isn't a story just about heroism vs evil, but of the choices ordinary people have to make in extra-ordinary circumstances, simply to survive. It's easy to be noble from a distance. Not so easy when it's your life, and those you love, or that of strangers, even against a common enemy.
Is it better than Schindler's List, against which it's bound to be compared?
I think it is. I feels more genuine, almost like a fly-on-the-wall account without actors, such is the convincing portrayal of individual suffering, and of the last vestiges of hope, without which, death is certain.
Naked Among Wolves deserves a higher profile and wider distribution, even 4 years after it's release.