The film, influenced by the novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, sets out with the rehabilitation of Polish Jews from immediate settings to the Krakow ghetto subsequent to the onset of World War II. Oskar Schindler played by Liam Neeson, a failed businessman and a Nazi Party member hailing from the Sudetenland wants to seize this war-time opportunity to earn some profit. Bribing some officials, Schindler gains control of a factory producing military mess kits. Collaborating with Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kingsley, manages to stay in the good books of the Nazis and acquires the status of “Herr Direktor”. They hire Jews instead of Poles as they cost less. This prevents them from being sent to concentration camps or murdered. Now, Amon Göth, played by Ralph Fiennes, enters with orders to set up concentration camps in KrakĂłw, causing mayhem. Schindler is touched and bribes Göth to exempt his workers. When an order from Berlin requiring Göth to ship the remaining Jews to Auschwitz arrives, Schindler manages to convince Göth to let him relocate his workers to his factory of Zwittau-Brinnlitz, in Moravia, in return for huge bribes. He eventually reaches bankruptcy protecting his workers as the war in Europe draws to an end. But this act gains him the respect and reverence of his employees. The film comes to an end by screening a procession of now-aged Jews, workers in Schindler’s factory, who pay their regards on his grave (Knott, pp. 188-9).
A truly touching film with Spielberg’s magical touch portrays ground reality during the war and inspires self-sacrifice and evokes the realization that human life is valued above everything else.
Works Cited
Knott, P; Analysis of Modern Cinema (Dhaka: Dasgupta & Chatterjee 2005) pp. 188-9