Kapò (1959)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Gillo Pontecorvo

Writers:

Gillo Pontecorvo (writer)
Franco Solinas (writer)

Release Date:

17 April 1961 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

A young Jewish girl leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp. |

Plot Keywords:

Concentration Camp | Jewish | Nazi Collaborator | German | Torture

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 wins

Cast

Susan Strasberg	...	Edith, alias Nicole Niepas
Laurent Terzieff	...	Sascha
Emmanuelle Riva	...	Terese
Didi Perego	...	Sofia
Gianni Garko	...	Karl, German Soldier
Annabella Besi
Graziella Galvani
Paola Pitagora
Eleonora Bellinzaghi
Bruno Scipioni
Dragomir Felba		(as Felba Dragomir)
Mira Dinulovic
Semka Sokolovic-Bertok		(as Semca Sokolic)
Dirjana Doc

Runtime:

Spain:118 min | USA:116 min

Country:

Italy | France | Yugoslavia

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Hungary:14 | Finland:K-16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Company:

Cineriz

Quotes:

Edith, alias Nicole Niepas: [to Sasha] Your mother won't like me, I'm not a good girl, and my name's not Nicole, I'm a Jew.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Marxist Poetry: The Making of 'The Battle of Algiers' (2004) (V)

Nuit et brouillard

Although it features two French leads (Laurent Terzieff and Emmanuelle Riva) ,"Kapo" has disappeared from the French dictionaries of films whereas lots of duds are included.

With the exceptions of "Nuit et Brouillard" (which was an exceptional documentary ) and Wanda Jakubowska 's "ostatni etap' (1947) there were few movies which at the time broached the concentration camps subject(the last scenes of Dmytryk's "young lions" ,1958)

Susan Strasberg was impressive ,mainly in the first hour though the evolution of her character is not always believable.Besides,her relationship with Sascha weakens the plot .

Emmanuelle Riva almost outshines Strasberg,maybe because she was a more experimented actress (she was featured in Resnais's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" ) and her scene when she is translating the German words in a voice chocked with emotion may be the strongest in the whole movie.

The "potato" scene is also revealing.I remember what Simone Veil ,a former French minister (secretary) (and herself a former prisoner in a concentration camp),said after watching the last episode of "Holocaust " (the seventies miniseries) : "in the camps ,people were not as helpful ,as kind ,as compassionate as they are in the film" ."Kapo" shows a very harsh world where the women are almost always fighting against their mates:that's the story of Edith /Nicole .