Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The village's dumb named Scholomo(Abelanski) comes running and shouting that the Jews from near little towns are being deported towards unknown locations. That same night the Jewish council of wise men (presided by Clement Harari) is reunited to find a manner to save the villagers. They determine that people will be shielded from the horrors around them and somehow finds a way to do it. Then Scholome proposes an original idea, organize a false deportation train so which they can flee the Nazis passing the Russian frontier and escape to Palestine. Some Jewish are dressed in German uniforms(Rufus) and others posing as fake prisoners. Their efforts sometimes are pure fantasy , though with ruse they pull off the feat to keep the faith on their dreams.This is a story about love, war and sacrifice , well starred and directed. Extraordinary movie with comedy upon an irrepressible group who refuses to ever give in to adversity and some moment is spoken in Yiddish and German language with subtitles. A beguiling and unique fable that celebrates the human spirit and the freedom. This amusing picture contains some of ¨Fiddler on the roof¨(Norman Jewison,1971), including violin performance , ¨Life is beautiful¨ (Roberto Benigni ,1997) and ¨The last train¨(Joseph Vilsmaier, 2006). Excellent performances by all cast, as Harari as veteran rabbi trying to preserve Jewish heritage against growing odds, Rufus as Jew posing as Nazi officer, Michel Muller as Jewish infected with the fast-spreading germ of communism, and Agatha La Fontaine as gorgeous youngster, among them. Emotive and hearty score melodically performed by Goran Bregovic, Emir Kusturica's usual. Director Radu Mihaileanu tirelessly maintains the humorous ingenuity and shapes simultaneously hilarious and haunting comedy. Rating : Better than average. Well worth watching.

I am sick when I see such scenario -- Nazis bad, Bolsheviks good. Riiiiight -- it looks like in Western Europe nobody really cares that people were murdered in Soviet Union, and not in one or two death camps. There were established whole "lands" of death camps.Nobody would survive "the escape", because people coming from German side were treated as spies (even prisoners of war). I realize that the move is a fiction, but it should not insult the memory of the people who died in Soviet Union.Soviet reality ordeal still waits for its director brave enough to make a movie showing that Stalin, Trocki, Kamieniew, Dzierzynski, etc. were not just politicians, but insane monsters beyond imagination. That there were a lot of Jews in Soviet authorities but also Jews were victims (for example Anti-Fascist Front Leaders, murdered on an order by Stalin).There is well known story about two trains full of Jews meeting in Brzesc (German-Soviet border in 1939). One train was going from Germany to Soviet Union, the second from the Soviet Union to Germany. And Jews from both trains were escaping and both were laughing of stupidity of the others.The plot was easy to fix -- train going to Switzerland instead of Soviet Union, believable, more historically accurate... So another attempt of Soviet glorification or just a stupidity of the director?

I saw this movie on Showtime, after a late night shift. Never went looking for it. I found the movie reveting.I saw some comments about "Life is Beautiful", and the comparison. A more apt comparison would be, I believe to "Fiddler on the Roof". In the same sense, perhaps not as musical though, the story seems to weave through the life and times of a community facing oncoming winds of change.In a way, with the arguments of the imitation Nazis, and the "revolutionary" communists, the pattern of life is both touchingly human, and comically sarcastic of how men are "seemingly" separated with each other.Although the Jewish communal environment seeps through the wonderful story, the later union with the gypsies who are also seeking a haven, relents to truly human and comic parody of the WWII era.

This movie is a great, fresh, original look at events surrounding the Holocaust. Mind you, this film does not look at the Holocaust itself, but at events surrounding it. It is an epitome of Jewish humor; anyone who finds this movie offensive does not understand this. The movie balances hope and honesty about tragedy beautifully, uses humor in a respectful context to make important deeper points (that is, it is not slapstick), and incorporates brief statements on love and theology. The various emotions that the movie evokes, often depending on the viewer's own mood at the time, allow the movie to be watched repeatedly and for new levels of meaning to reveal themselves. Roberto Benigni may have stolen the concept of "Life is Beautiful" from Mihaileanu's "Train de Vie," but the films cannot be compared. Whereas Benigni glibly believes that love and laughter can conquer all, even the Holocaust, Mihaileanu understands that they can only help one survive separately from the more practical and real danger of physical death. In other words, love and laughter are directly part of the point of "Life is Beautiful"--ends in themselves--a somewhat offensive concept. In "Train de Vie," on the other hand, they are on the side and only serve as foils, as means to ends. The ending of "Train de Vie" further eliminates any glib concept of easy survival that is present in "Life is Beautiful." A must see, especially for anyone who has seen and disliked "Life is Beautiful."