A German industrialist, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), becomes virtuous enough to start saving the lives of captured Jews in Steven Spielberg‘s Schindler’s List, from 1993. The man who, in response to the film, observed that the Holocaust was not about salvation but rather annihilation was right. Also true, however, is that the film effectively shows people—the Jews—being sucked into a sphere of nonstop human destructiveness; the obliteration of lives, yes.

Schindler’s List has its flaws but, too, it offers some staggering scenes. Spielberg is a true and disturbing artist here, as when a gunshot is heard before the tracking camera exposes the dead body of a Jewish boy whom, shocked, we believe had been pardoned by the monstrous Nazi, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). Such scenes of Auschwitz as that of the gathering of women at a site where they might be gassed and a melee involving children of these women are hair-raising and dramatically momentous.

Neeson was displeased with his performance as Schindler, claiming he failed to own the role. Spielberg’s and screenwriter Steven Zaillian’s material owns the movie.

The French Connection (1971), the William Friedkin film, has a potent New York City flavor and is good at presenting the determination of drug traders to acquire a lot of dough.  Gene Hackman is perfect as Detective “Popeye” Doyle, but there is virtually nothing admirable about the man.  He stinks.

The movie is not as witty as some have believed.  The talk can be coarse and sophomoric, and it sometimes seems insufficient.  The urgent music is a bit overused, and . . .well, other blemishes in this demotic film are well catalogued.  On the other hand, it is a thrilling thriller.

Cover of The French Connection

There is global dissatisfaction with, even hatred for, Communist governments, for movies that express this have emanated from Russia, China, Cuba, Germany. Christian Petzold‘s 2012 Barbara is one such German film, as important as the others.

Nina Hoss enacts a thirtyish doctor living in East Germany in the 1980s. Her application to leave the country has compelled the government to send her to work in a rural hospital, but Barbara, the doctor, seeks to escape to the West. Communists in power, to her, are “assholes.” This means, even so, that Barbara will be leaving behind some broken people—patients—and her West German lover is willing to live with her in the Red East. Much is forcing her to make a difficult choice.

Having seen Barbara twice, I realize it is a small film. But also it is grave and uncompromising. And it is humanistic—humanistically anti-Red.

(In German with English subtitles)

Kris Kristofferson, as an ex-cop released from prison and now needing to rebuild his life, adds little to the film Trouble in Mind (1985). Divine (remember him?) adds even less.

Directed and written by Alan Rudolph, the picture is a weird film noir which grows dismayingly feeble and dopey. Rudolph does some nice things—images, I mean—with beautiful Lori Singer‘s face and body, but her role is hardly astutely created. Too bad I couldn’t know Trouble in Mind was trouble when it first walked in. (Apologies to Taylor Swift.)

At the center of Lazzaro Felice (2018), by Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher, is a saintly though ignorant young man called Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo). Forced by a female tobacco business owner into so much indebtedness that no salary is possible, he and a large group of workers are mere slaves until the operation is shut down.

With the rotten U.S. title of Happy as Lazzaro, the film is, I think, meant to be mythopoeic. Rohrwacher has invented a modern myth that points up goodness (and naivete) over against evil in human history. Alas, she doesn’t really know where to take this myth, for the final scene is pedestrian, weak. Prior to it, however, what we see is engrossing—a quiet marvel with miracle realism, if you will.

Available on Netflix.

(In Italian with English subtitles)