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I would like to spend a few lines comparing Fateless to Schindler's List, but not until I describe Fateless first. Fateless is a movie based on Imre Kertesz best-selling novel "Fatelessness" about his own experiences during the Holocaust in Hungary. The film begins with our protagnist witnessing his father being called up to a "labor camp." Later, on his way to work, he himself is grabbed by the SS and transported via rail to Auschwitz, the most evil of all the extermination camps.
On his way, the protagonist encounters evil in many forms. The SS that beat and degrade him and the rest of the Jews without regard for their humanity. Later, in the concentration camps we notice the main characters demise and lost of interest in life. Many of his fellow inmates struggle to get him to care about life and to have hope, but he is just merely to exhausted and disgusted with life to care at this point.
At his most vulnerable point and on the cust of death, liberation comes and the protagonist is saved from a certain death. He then return to Hungary to witness that many people have continued life as if nothing happened. To make matters worse, many of his fellow-countrymen and even his fellow Jews are indifferent to his suffering at best and disgusted by him at worst. We notice that the protagonist is changed. He has no hope. He talks about his experiences and describes them as normal. Not normal in the real world, but normal is his mind.
The movie in itself is very powerful but it leaves you asking many questions. It definitley doesn't provide you with a "happily ever-after" ending. It is an awkward feeling to have a film with such violence and evil and suffering and not have any good come out of it.
Feeling jipped out of a good ending, I went to the Special Features section and found an interview with Kertesz about the film. Imre Kertesz not only wrote the novel "Fatelesness," but he also wrote the script to the film "Fateless." In a section of the interview, Kertesz expresses his disgust for the film Schindler's List. He takes great exception to the "happy" ending portrayed in that film. He argues that there wasn't always a silver lining to the suffering of the Jews. In fact, there hardly was one. The reality of the Holocaust was that there was a massive scale extermination and infliction of suffering with no purpose. There was no greater cause. No good that came out of it. For example, in Schindler's List we see that "Schindler Jews" at the end of the movie and we feel a sense of relief, that there was some good that came out of all that suffering. Also, we witness the Jews waving at Oskar Schindler in that movie and saying "hi boss." Kertesz argues that this is just no factual. Everyday life in extermination camps robbed you of your humanity. The exhaustion, the lack of rational behavior, it all compounded and greatly affected the psyche of the Jews. In Imre Kertesz' case, there was no good that came out of his suffering, so he didn't want to portray a film as such. Therefore, you are left with a raw film with no hope. Suffering and pain for the sake of suffering and pain. It is very powerful and a must-see for everyone. A must-have, especially for those with an interest in the Holocaust and WWII.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Aaron Daniel Cohen-LeeReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2008
Best Holocaust film.
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