Wonderful Movie

good film but with many flaws

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This East German movie is a very unusual movie about the Holocaust because it focuses on life within the ghetto. However, the film seemed a bit sanitized in how the residents looked and how they were treated. Unlike some later films, some of the Jews in this film looked awfully well-fed and conditions didn't seem all that bad. The cattle car where the remaining Jews were placed seemed rather spacious and not all that bad either--even though in reality many died on the cars due to conditions. In addition, some of the German soldiers seemed pretty nice. Perhaps this might have been that the Soviet-dominated East Germans were more willing to talk about their sordid past but were still struggling with fully accepting it. Whatever is the case, this aspect of the film did surprise me a bit.Now as for the rest of the film, it was marvelous and provided an odd insight into life in the ghettos. The acting was excellent and the film is very much worth seeing, though not nearly as compelling as THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET, SCHINDLER'S LIST or AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS. I have not seen the recent remake starring Robin Williams, so I can't really compare the two, but my inclination is almost always to go with the originals.PS--The English captioning for this film is pretty poor. Instead of directly translating what is said, it's often summarized or even wrong. My knowledge of German isn't too bad, and several times what they said did not correspond at all to the captioning. You can't blame the film makers for this, but the company that released the film.

I think this film was very well done. I was drawn into the plot and characters very quickly. I would reccommend this film to anyone who would enjoy a new outlook on life. I know that is one of the things I got from watching this movie. Jakob was a very charismatic person and I could not wait to find out what would happen to him and his comrades. Though this movie was not very fast paced, there was enough going on that kept me interested during the entire movie.

This movie is a story full of lies that brought more hope to the Jews living in the Ghetto. Jakob was the one being outside after curfew and he had to report to the Police, and after walking into the station he heard some news on the Radio. He thought that it was good news that the Russians were coming closer. He could not m=keep that to himself so he went and told this to one of his friends who was not supposed to say anything. After a short while the whole Ghetto was talking about those news. Jakob saw that everybody was feeling much better so he continued to tell lies about the news. This is a movie that gets better and better as it moves along. It also gives hope to the Jewish people in the Ghetto and Jakob was having good intentions but it just complicated itself more and more.

Jacob the LiarI liked this movie, and I think it had good lessons to learn from. I liked Lena's character. She was completely innocent throughout the entire movie, and I felt that she showed not everyone had lost hope during the time. Even at the end, she was excited that they were going away, and she had no clue where. She was just being a kid, and going anywhere is exciting when you are young. Jacob starting telling stories about the Russians and other things he knew about the war. The reality was that he knew nothing more than anyone else. In a way, it did help the people's spirits though. But in the end, everyone was unhappy because their optimism was crushed with the sign that said everyone was to gather together with less than 5 kilos in luggage so they could `go away'.I think my favorite scene was when the old man thought he heard voices in the freight car. While I was watching the movie, I thought he was crazy and apparently so did everyone else. They all thought he was just hearing things that weren't there. The reality was that there was someone in the car, but they never showed who and a guard shot the old man before he could tell anyone. The scene sparked my curiosity on who it was exactly in the car and why that person was being held in there, or if they were being held in the at all.The whole radio lie caused a lot of problems in the movie, and that's why I said above that there were some good lessons to be learned in the movie. One lie sparked another for him, and that got him in deeper into his stories until so many people were asking about the radio that he just couldn't make anything else up and he finally told his friend. Surprisingly enough, the friend took the news very well. In a way, it almost seemed like he was expecting it all along. The movie shows that lying for whatever cause is never a good cause no matter how much you think it may help the situation. The lies turned everyone against him in the end, and they all ended up the same way anyhow unfortunately. Although this wasn't my favorite movie in class so far, I did enjoy watching it, and it kept my attention throughout the story.