Colette

Arnost Lustig was one of the world's most renowned literary authors of our times. Lustig's novel 'A girl from Antwerp' upon which our film Colette is based, draws on the author's personal ... See full summary »

Director:

Milan Cieslar

Writers:

Geraldine Blecker, Milan Cieslar (screenplay) 

Stars:

Jirí Mádl, Clémence Thioly, Juraj Adamík

Storyline

Arnost Lustig was one of the world's most renowned literary authors of our times. Lustig's novel 'A girl from Antwerp' upon which our film Colette is based, draws on the author's personal Nazi Concentration Camp experience and his own recollection of several escape attempts from the hell of Auschwitz. The story of The Pulitzer Prize nominee Lustig is about the power of love under an extreme life circumstances. It is a story of young lovers and their vigorous determination to escape from a hopeless life condition and theirs courage to face death.

Version 1

User Reviews

 

Exhausted, barely hanging for the sake of love.

30 June 2015 | by Reno Rangan (Somewhere in the Cosmos) – See all my reviews

The story was told by an escaped Jewish from the Auschwitz concentration camp controlled by the German Nazi during the second world war. Obviously the film was based on the history, so the story must be true, but I feel there are some fictional accounts as well. Because it was the first called 'Colette: A Girl from Antwerp' from the three book series about three Jewish women. The author Arnost Lustig was the victim of the war crime and it was his story. All the confuse is for the male lead character named Vili Feld, not Arnost Lustig.

It was a decent as a movie and one of the terrifying world war 2 horror as a story. Those who survived that outrage was lived to tell the stories, and just imagine how many more stories have not made its accounts. Despite it was about a young woman called Colette Cohen, the tale was narrated by Vili Feld by recollecting his memories of the prison camp events. Colette is the one he has fallen for. He gives up an easy job just to see her everyday. His secret love, suffering during held and deaths around, all these are the story's main ingredient told in a margin of the thin line between good and bad.

Vili lived all his life looking for the reason for the some unanswered questions. Being in the prison and having an affair was like a chess game. The story was also told in a similar fashion, like pawns moving all around from both the sides and sacrificing a few to win the game. Ultimately, how the game was set up for the grand finale was ended casually before the original timeline's end come into the effect. Survival was the main intention, especially the King and the Queen in the chess format to say. That's the reason the deaths around, I mean the pawn sacrifices were not heartbreaking that we see easily throughout the film.

The greatest thing a person could ever do... Is to save someone's life.

Technically, it sounded a great; photography, editing, music all were depicted the 40s era precisely as for our knowledge of understanding. The performances were too not bad at all, but it was the second string end that looked so stupid. No complain if it was accurate to the real occurrence, though there are not enough evident to prove or the movie won't tell much at the end. In a such cruelty related theme I can't believe the shortfall of emotions and rawness. The screenplay was nearly comparable to the dark comedy, having a brutal war in the backdrop. It focused lots of thriller, but there are equally cool moments that actually calms. As a result, it seems not true to the novel, but borrows certain pages from the book, especially heavily on the romance bits and ignores everything else.

After watching the whole film, still doubt remained with me in certain parts of the narrative. Maybe I need to have one more look, appears to be something I missed. The film, coming from a country like the Czech Republic is really remarkable effort, especially for it in the English language which makes the world look to on this direction. There's no argument about the international standards, the original touch is what's needed because I felt many scenes were directly inspired by the other second world war flicks. Other than that it was very close to 'Life is Beautiful', except it was not a comedy. Worth for a single time watch like any plot that related to this filthy war the man forever regretted for.