Directed by:
Brian PercivalScreenplay:
Michael PetroniCinematography:
Florian BallhausComposer:
John WilliamsCast:
Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, Nico Liersch, Ben Schnetzer, Joachim Paul Assböck, Carina N. Wiese, Kirsten Block, Georg Tryphon (more)Plots(1)
Based on the beloved best-selling book comes this profoundly moving story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II, Germany. Although Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) is illiterate when she is adopted by a German couple (Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson), her adoptive father encourages her to learn to read. Ultimately, the power of words helps Liesel and Max (Ben Schnetzer), a Jew hiding in the family’s home, escape from the events unfolding around them in this extraordinary, acclaimed film directed by Brian Percival. (20th Century Fox AU)
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Reviews (8)
On paper, this film must come across as a disproportionately drawn-out and highly sentimental amalgamation of all the clichés one can recall from stories about evil Nazis and the power of friendly values in times of war. But I confess that I found the final form, its effective narrative strategies, the performances, the approach to the viewer and the way the film presents itself so unobtrusively yet compulsively impressive that I have to subjectively increase the lower objective rating. On the poetically ironic commentary of an unusual narrator, on the light tones of Williams's soundtrack, and on the purely humanistic messages through the lens of uncorrupted human souls, I rode comfortably to a powerful cinematic experience that may be too pleasant given the gravity of the subject matter, but what it wants to convey, it conveys effectively and without fail.
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The beautiful story is only separated from perfection by a strange linguistic entanglement. The characters speak English with a German accent (except for the mayor's fiery speech, which is all in German), German words "ja", "nein", "und", "Saumensch" and so on are sometimes slipped into their English sentences, there are German signs on all the houses, and yet the books are written in English and so are the people... That's just something you don't have to deal with when you read the book, but you do in the film. But otherwise I have nothing to complain about in The Book Thief. Amazing performances by Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson, a number of unforgettable scenes backed by Williams' out-of-this-world music (the snow battle leads the way), perfect narration... I'm so glad I watched The Book Thief on the big screen.
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Another monstrous contribution to the scary "Holocaust for the Whole Family" sub-genre, which includes, for example, the much-adored The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Compared to that, The Book Thief isn't as aggressively retarded and sci-fi-istic, but even here the view of that whole Nazi Germany problem is summed up as Hitler and a few of his cronies deciding to wage war and cleanse the Reich, and the rest of the Germans just trying to survive before it rolls over. That demonization of the individual is actually quite an appealing progression from classic wartime films where German equated to an obligatory barrel in the back of the head; on the other hand, here the element of danger is constantly represented by the sound of car engines, whose arrival on the street where 80% of the film takes place rarely means anything pleasant. However, the problem with The Book Thief is its narrow focus on school screenings, where they check off the elements of the fact that the Nazi thing probably wasn't entirely kosher in the individual scenes, but without a hint of healthy naturalism, and for the love over a monstrous 130 minutes. The moldy cherry on the stale cake (where they made up for the missing flour with detergent), is the character of the narrator – Death, voiced by Geoffrey Rush, i.e. one of the protagonists of the story, but these characters otherwise have nothing to do with each other, so I was all mixed up when it actually comes out that Liesel's adoptive father is actually Death and they're all long stiff or something. Anyway, whenever the movie pulls off a potentially interesting and atypical scene, unfortunately someone decided that the narrator had to inform the audience that the scene was interesting and atypical.
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The film has moments that are inventive and interesting, but it still heavily leans on the fact that it's a story from World War II seen through the eyes of a relatively young girl who must come to terms with the fact that growing up happens differently in such times. It's nice, it's human, and it's sometimes a bit shallow, but it still managed to touch my heart. And that's thanks to the great Geoffrey Rush.
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A melodramatic film set in World War II, narrated by the Great Reaper himself. While the heroic Wehrmacht is conquering most of Europe and marching toward Moscow; under the roof of Hubermann’s house, the Judeo-Bolshevik menace rears its ugly head. The film reminded me of the Czech comedy Divided We Fall. It’s well cast, and the performances do it justice. It does have its weaknesses, though. In fact, the message it tries to get across is that not all Germans were bad during the war, but it does so in a very naive way. In the end, I was under the impression that the town had only two Nazis out of conviction: the mayor and Franz Deutscher. I was annoyed by the heartbreakingly poignant scenes, which didn’t need to be there at all. Nevertheless, I still liked the film, being the sensitive guy I am.
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