Just who was responsible for the Holocaust in Germany in the 1940's? This is what this brutally honest film asks as a train full of prisoners is left stranded in a small German village. The townsfolk must decide whether to help them or ignore them. Their individual soul-searching is the meat of the film - and the conclusion is staggeringly powerful.
Well photographed and with haunting music, this film will stay with you long after it finishes. Performances are excellent and the direction strong. My only quibble is that sometimes the little melodramas of the characters (infidelities etc) seem too trivial, in the context of the suffering on the rail carriages, to hold our interest. Nonetheless I applaud the honesty of the German film-makers to take such an uncompromising look at their own history.
Well photographed and with haunting music, this film will stay with you long after it finishes. Performances are excellent and the direction strong. My only quibble is that sometimes the little melodramas of the characters (infidelities etc) seem too trivial, in the context of the suffering on the rail carriages, to hold our interest. Nonetheless I applaud the honesty of the German film-makers to take such an uncompromising look at their own history.
