SummaryYael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic con... Read More
Directed By:Yael Hersonski
Written By:Yael Hersonski
A Film Unfinished
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
88
User score
Generally Favorable
7.2
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
100% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
A profoundly unnerving historical document.
Dec 7, 2010
90
To say that the film is uncomfortable to watch is an understatement. It's searing. Yet it's also invaluable.
User score
Generally Favorable
80% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
7% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
13% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Dec 12, 2010
10
Poetic as it is probing, illuminating as it is moving, this astonishing Holocaust documentary uses newly found archive footage to show the day-to-day horror, strife, and heroism among the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. And because the footage was intended as the centerpiece of a never-completed **** propaganda 'documentary,' it also shows with damning clarity the filmmakers' original evil intention to contrast the decadent lives of luxury supposedly lived by a handful of affluent Jews (all in ludicrously staged fictional footage) with the desperate and impoverished lives of their fellow citizens. Adding to the film's overwhelming power are the faces and words of survivors as they watch this document of a long-ago but never forgotten part of their lives; long-lost family, friends, and neighbors captured forever on film. Truly extraordinary.
Jul 3, 2011
8
What is advertised as a shocking tail of a propaganda film is more or less a telling of the day to day life at the Warsaw Ghetto. I just wish the filmmakers understood how golden the stories and relationships of the survivors to the ghetto were. At times it feels as though the documentary is trying to be more of a conspiracy piece, placing twists and turns that are way to knowledgeable to the viewer to gain the gasps that they are working for.
90
Remarkable as much for its speculative restraint as for its philosophical reach.
90
It becomes a meditation on the dual nature of film, on a "reality" at once true and false, essential and tainted.
Oct 21, 2010
83
If it can seem like there's no end of films about the Holocaust, it might be because there is no bottom to the well of crime, inhumanity and evil described by that ghastly event.
80
Hersonski enriches this evidence by bringing in survivors of the ghetto, who tell stories of life there while watching the film themselves.
70
Just when we thought there were no new twists to the story of the Warsaw Ghetto comes this documentary: focused, sorrowful and revelatory.
Sep 24, 2010
0
Um... I did not get a good vibe out of James Steal. How can anyone with any kind of intelligence disbelieve the voluminous evidence regarding the biggest nightmare in human history? Some people's stupidity is awe-inspiring.
Release Date:Aug 18, 2010
Duration:1 h 28 m
Rating:R
Tagline:In 1942 The Nazi Propaganda Machine Was Hard at Work. 70 Years Later, The Deceit is Finally Unmasked
Awards
Sundance Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Shanghai International TV Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 2 Nominations
