Tag: death camp

The Most Precious
of Cargoes
(La Plus Précieuse
des Marchandises)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 3 April 2025
No Comments on The Most Precious
of Cargoes
(La Plus Précieuse
des Marchandises)
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Director – Michel Hazanavicius – 2024 – France – Cert. 12a – 81m

*****

In Winter in a forest, a poor woodcutter’s wife rescues an abandoned baby thrown from a passing train and, despite her husband’s misgivings, raises the girl as her own – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 4th

Once upon a time… In the woods through which many trains pass… In a war… Yes, that war… In Winter, when everything is under snow… The wife (voice: Dominique Blanc from La Reine Margot, Patrice Chéreau, 1994; Indochine, Régis Wargnier, 1992) of a poor woodcutter, unable to have children, is outside and prays to the Gods of the Trains. Whether they hear her and look upon her kindly, or whether they even exist, it’s impossible to say. Following her prayer, however, she hears the sound of a baby crying. How did the baby get there? Well, unbeknownst to the woman, a man in a goods wagon threw it out of a passing train. She locates the baby girl, takes it home, feeds it. It’s the child she never had.

Her husband, the woodcutter (voice: Grégory Gadebois from Everything Went Fine, François Ozon, 2021; Redoubtable, Michel Hazanavicius, 2017), on returning home, discovers the baby and is furious.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, abandoned baby, adaptation, animation, atrocity, authorities, baby, baby crying, beating heart, bodies into pits, child, chimneys belching smoke, complicit, covered wagons, death camp, Denis Podalydès, Dominique Blanc, drawn animation, face missing, fairy tale, fiction, forest, France, Gods of the Trains, Grégory Gadebois, heartless, history, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, isolated, Jean-Claude Grumberg, Jean-Louis Trintignant, nightmare, Once upon a time, paediatrician, passing train, Poland, poor woodcutter, poor woodcutter’s wife, prayer, rescue, secret, shelter, snow, speaking out, Star of David, the Final Solution, The Most Precious of Cargoes, thrown from a train, towers, truth, war, Winter, woodcutter’s wife

Features Live Action Movies

Schindler’s List

Director – Steven Spielberg – 1993 – US – Cert. 15 – 195m

*****

World War Two allows failed Czech industrialist Schindler to come into his own as he saves Jews from Aushwitz by employing them as slave labour in his factories– out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 18th 1994

Unsuccessful Czech businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) comes into his own during the war years as a supplier of pots and pans to the German Army. Although a badge-wearing Party member, he is neither well- nor ill-disposed towards Jews, simply an honest businessman seizing the opportunities presented by their persecution under Nazi rule. As the Jews are ghettoised in Krakow, he realises that here are investors with capital to burn for whom it is illegal to invest in business under their own names – in other words, surefire financiers; here are workers required to work all hours of the day for virtually nothing, keeping down a businessman’s cost.

He hires brilliant, ghettoised, Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to run his enterprise. Under the command of ruthless commandant Amon Goeth (an astonishing turn from an unknown Ralph Fiennes which catapaulted the actor to overnight stardom) the ghettos are cleared, and the Jews moved into Plasnow concentration camp, but Schindler continues undeterred until the transportation of inmates to the Auschwitz death camp, against which he compiles Schindler’s List of 1 100 Jews necessary to run his factory, saving them from extermination.… Read the rest

Tags Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 1993-4, Academy Awards 1994, Auschwitz, Ben Kingsley, black and white, Brinnlitz, businessman, capital, commandant, concentration camp, Czech, death camp, Embeth Davidtz, enterprise, extermination, factory workers, financiers, German Army, Germany, ghetto, gravestones, herding, hiding place, Holocaust, inmates, investors, Janusz Kaminski, Jew, Jewish, Jewish heritage, Krakow, latrines, Liam Neeson, low cost, Nazi Party, Oscar, Oscars, Oscars 1993-4, Oscars 1994, Oskar Schindler, Party member, persecution, Plasnow, Poland, pots and pans, Ralph Fiennes, red coat, ruthless, saving lives, Schindler's List, Second World War, shooting, Steven Spielberg, tombstone, trains, transportation, US, workers, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, WW2

Features Live Action Movies

Nobody Leaves Alive
(Ninguém Sai Vivo Daqui)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 15 November 2023
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(Ninguém Sai Vivo Daqui)
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Director – André Ristum – 2023 – Brazil – Cert. none – 86m

****

After a woman is incarcerated in Brazil’s notorious Colonia psychiatric hospital simply because she is pregnant outside of marriage, her hold on reality starts to disintegrate – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

Lovingly shot in a stylish black and white that both makes the whole thing feel like a dream and detracts from any sense of reality, this opens with a young woman being bundled by two men into what looks like a cattle truck. Inside the truck are other people, and the group is clearly being sent somewhere specific.

Once off the train they are frogmarched down a country track, through some wrought metal gates of late 19th / early 20th Century design and into a hallway where they are separated into men and women and the women (since it is one woman’s story we are following here) are taken to a large, tiled room and hosed down by two women, the younger of whom is Laura.

Then the woman we are following is taken for interview with a man who denies he’s a doctor. Her name is Elisa, and she explains there’s been some sort of mix-up.… Read the rest