Feature: Dear Moviegoers — Joyous Holocaust! Love, Hollywood
Posted by arielstory on December 16, 2008
By Nick Schager
The Holocaust is a serious subject. And November and December is serious subject matter time in Hollywood. No surprise, then, that every awards season sees its fair share of dramas set in and around WWII concentration camps. But even in light of this predictable pattern, 2008 has, to put it diplomatically, lost its freakin’ mind. In the last two months of this year, there will have been six — SIX?!? — films released that, in one way or another, deal with Nazis. Part of the problem is simply quality, as all of these releases barely rise to the level of mediocre. Yet the issue of quantity seems just as troubling, as their basic, simultaneous existence calls into question not only the continuing viability of extracting drama from this most momentous (and, consequently, well-trod) of historical tragedies, but also, fundamentally, the growing absence of originality or ingenuity in mainstream cinema, especially during the Oscar-hungry stretch run.
To even suggest putting Holocaust dramas on hiatus is probably going to be taken by some as an example of insulting ignorance on the part of yours truly. Yet when viewed in the context of 15 years worth of post-”Schindler’s List” cinema, the recent preponderance of highfalutin’ cinematic sagas about the “Final Solution” has created a situation in which there’s virtually nothing left to say about anything — about heroism, sacrifice, cowardliness, treachery, collusion, intolerance, mass hysteria, etc. — through the prism of Nazi Germany. What we’re left with are stories that either regurgitate familiar lessons about the Holocaust, or ones that use the genocide to give added weight and importance to their stock morality play lessons. The following sextet is a collection of such functional, faux-prestigious dullness that the greatest moviegoing tribute one could pay to those who perished in (or survived) the death camps would be to skip this dispiriting lot and instead rent “The Sorrow and the Pity.
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