chrissso Life in the ghettos of Poland … we can't see it enough … the lessons are that important! Lives condemned to Purgatory … stripped of their possessions … relocated … waiting for the trains … waiting for "resettlement" … waiting to see if the unthinkable was more than rumor.The feeling of hopelessness would be overwhelming … yet the feeling of hope would also be present as that is human nature … and that is perfectly captured in this remarkable East German film! It is a cleaver script that makes a clever statement. The acting in the film by all principals was superb, as was the location and sets. It just looked and felt so accurate. More so the ending was an incredibly well done! Who would think that such a great film could come out of E Germany in 1975! And talk about aging well!!! Highly recommended!!! PS: Agree with the review that stated that "the English captioning for this film is pretty poor." I don't speak German but could easily tell it was off. 8/10

nyctc7 This move has a very powerful ending, but unfortunately it is a chore to get there. The script and many of the characters aren't all that interesting. The acting is mixed--Manuela Simon, who plays Jacob's ten-year old (or so) niece, out-acts them all, except for of course Vlastimil Brodský (Jacob) and Erwin Geschonneck (Kowalski) who do give fine performances. There is nothing notable about the other performances. The film moves along at a stagy, slow pace. The deprivations of life in the Ghetto are not fleshed out. Same with the brutality of the Nazis. This makes the film seem at best ungenuine and at worst dishonest. But the powerful ending makes up for it all. However, I wish there had been more interesting drama along the way. There's no tension in the film at all. It reminded me a bit of Gus Van Sant's "Elephant," where we see the mundane, somewhat boring day in the life of some high school students--it moves at a snail's pace, but that's what makes the ending especially shocking and disturbing. Also in Jacob the Liar there are some (in my opinion unsuccessful) attempts at humor. But the subject of the film is no laughing matter. So I have a lot of nits to pick with this film, but I'll be haunted by the ending forever. forever.

jing villareal The Holocaust has been told in many different ways. We have seen the brutality of it in documentaries on cable as well as in a number of contemporary films. The visuals of Aryan supremacy in Leni Reifenstahl's Nazi propaganda films, images of mountains of dead Jews and extremely inhumane conditions in death camps in Schindler's List, serve not merely to drive the film narrative but stir our emotions as well. These images have conditioned us to read such films and documentaries using stereotypes of both the Jews and the Nazi – Jews are good and the Nazi, evil. The film Jakob the Liar explores the holocaust in a new light, presenting anti-Semitism in a relatively subtle way without compromising its substance as well as the film's power to move human emotion.The music is monotonous suggesting the monotony of the protagonists' lives in the ghetto. Shots are limited to medium shots and lots of close-ups making one feel claustrophobic, enveloped, and asphyxiated even. This immensely adds to an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair. Close-ups also give specific information about the character, their feelings, the way they live, the things they've gone thought and their relationships with each other. The personal information provided us makes us develop a sense of closeness with the characters. Midway in the film, we already have a bond with the characters, we already know their real feelings despite the lightness, surrealistic and oftentimes humorous treatment of the scenes. It is also quite extraordinary to depict the Nazi they way this film did considering that this is a holocaust film and one of the first East German film to tackle the subject. Unlike in other film where the Nazis are portrayed as unreasonably evil and sadistic, here we are given a glimpse of their humanity. In the introductory scene where a tower guard tells Jakob to report to Gestapo headquarters for not complying with the curfew, we saw instances where Jakob would have surely been severely punished or even killed but the officers were surprisingly reasonable and just. One officer caught him eavesdropping but lets him go, Jakob then wakes up a sleeping head officer to report his misdemeanor yet even with being irritated for being roused awake, he lets Jakob go without a scratch. The tower-guard, proved wrong, lets Jakob go as well. We also saw guards who are not necessarily the perfect Aryan depicted in Riefenstahl films. There was one guard who walks with a limp and another having the runs. There was also a scene where one guard beats up a Jew (Kowalski), then later returns and drops two sticks of cigarettes for Kowalski - an unspoken apology for having beaten up the Jew. A Nazi apologizing to a Jew in a holocaust film! Is that something or what? But then, the film doesn't make us hate the Nazi guards or to view them as the villains in the film. Instead we are made to understand the situation and the circumstance is the real enemy here. This is not a movie pitting the Jews against their Nazi guards like the director's own "Naked among Wolves"; this is a film about a people's struggle to maintain their dignity and humanity amidst the hardships they have suffered.The film started with glimpses of the ghetto and Jakob checking out his sick niece, all these visuals already gives us an idea of the life of the protagonist and the place he lives in. Then in a very short verbal exchange with one of the ghetto's denizen, Jakob gives us a background of his situation, that a guard took his watch from him. The guy he was talking to on the other hand warns him about the curfew to which he answers that without his watch, has no way to tell time. This sequence tells us that first, the guards can take and do take from the Jews anything they want and second, that the people are in constant fear of the guards and dare not disobey any rules lest one wants to be severely punished or killed. It also tells us that in the event that Jakob gets killed, he will be leaving his young and sick niece to care for herself. The character's actions and mood also imply of a prevailing state of constant fear - whether that of being killed or seeing someone close to you die a meaningless death.The Jews in the film were waiting for an inevitable annihilation, a fate they have long accepted until Jakob gave them an alternate view of the future because of his news of a possible liberation by the Russians.Through out the film, we are still constantly given pieces of Jewish life before the ghetto. Through flashbacks and what the characters say, we are presented concrete glimpses of how their lives of the films protagonists were before the ghetto. We also shown that in the ghetto, former actors, lawyers, businessmen and even people from the church lose their former identities. In the ghetto, they are made to wear the star and made to work and follow rules like everybody else, albeit their former position or affiliation. Everybody suffers, everyone is subjected to the harshness of ghetto life everyday there's no distinction in class, social status, age and/or sex. We see old people doing hard labor, children getting sick and eating mere crumbs or pieces of vegetables. We see the protagonists picking flies out of their soup and making a feast out of minced onion and a slice of bread. Frank Bayer told the story and made us feel what the characters felt using visuals – and very powerful visuals at that.

carioca-6 This was the first and only East German film ever to be nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. It won many other awards, and features three actors, who are still very much active today. It has been re released in video throughout the world. I saw it after ordering it recently from Amazon.com. For all the accolades the film received, I must say that I enjoyed the recent American remake, directed by a Hungarian Holocaust Survivor, much more. I know the critics panned this version, but curiously the same things critics hated about the remake are taken right out of this, the original. In any case, the original is also good, though disappointing if you enjoyed the recent JACOB... The film does offer us the opportunity to see the famous Czech actor, V. Brodsky, still very active in Czech film and TV. We also see a young (late 30s) Armin Mueller-Stahl, prior to his defection from Communist East Germany. Interestingly, he also starred in the recent remake as the sixtyish doctor in the film. The young romantic (played by L. Schreiber in the remake) is played by the still active Henry Hubchen, recently featured in the German hit SONNENALLEE. In my opinion, the film is mostly worthwhile for these hindsight curiosity values. However, many will feel it is indeed a landmark film, on its own. Watch it and decide what you think.