This film, while it has some strong moments depicting or discussing incidents related to the Holocaust, was unable to hold my attention like many other could. One reason was that it has little to say that other Holocaust dramas already have, and was thus just very boring, and the characters were generally uninteresting. One strength the film had, probably its main one, is that it has some quite beautiful black-and-white cinematography. However the story was just not put together well and the characters did not hold my attention much at all, and the film's running time was also too long for what it was doing. Apart from that, the film had a couple scenes that were half decent, one specific one where to men were discussing Chekhov and the fate of his Jewish fiance, which (whether historically accurate or not, I'm unsure), was a very well inserted moment, despite have nothing to do with the actual plot of the film.
Overall, if you've seen other films about the Holocaust, the really good ones, whether those are 'The Pianist,' 'Schindler's List,' or 'Ida,' you probably won't get much at all out of this film that those films didn't do a lot better, and won't be missing much.
Overall, if you've seen other films about the Holocaust, the really good ones, whether those are 'The Pianist,' 'Schindler's List,' or 'Ida,' you probably won't get much at all out of this film that those films didn't do a lot better, and won't be missing much.