Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

A Film Unfinished shows more death – literal, real death – than perhaps any other movie. Comprised of footage the Nazis shot for a staged documentary of the Warsaw Ghetto, it is an essential Holocaust movie because it’s real, contemporaneous and shows how the Nazis forced the Jews to live in deathly conditions.

Beware, many scenes are profoundly sad, literally hold-your-head-in-your-hand horrifying. When you think it’s done getting to you, when you’re kinda happy to be jaded, slave laborers start sliding emaciated corpses down a wooden board into a mass grave, and the sadness comes down like a wave, smothering the awe.

Acting - Perfect 5.0

Real footage of life in the ghetto, albeit much of it staged to make it appear normal, can’t help but be perfect.

Film - Very Good 3.5

Yael Hersonski deserves enormous acclaim for creating this important documentary from rescued film.

Edge - Sordid 2.6

Reality - Natural 1.0

Jews in the ghetto were forced to give up a core Jewish value – treating life as sacred. That brings to mind Stalin’s infamous quote that “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” Jews during the Holocaust were forced to live and die as statistics.

A Film Unfinished restores many Holocaust victims to their rightful status of human tragedies.

Mitzvahs get no greater.

1 Comment

• Wick Jun 16, 2011 8:54PM

  Regarding BigdaddyDave’s Review
  Wow. Great recommendation (and review). Thank you.

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