[CAUTION: SPOILERS]
Although the film itself is admirable, I fear that the final scene is heavyhanded and out of place. In a film that does not provide any hints of highfalutin metaphor (it is, after all, a very plain film, with very little (if any) technical creativity or innovation), an ending such as the one presented is startling and out of place. Perhaps ending one scene earlier, with the train rolling along, fading to black, would have saved a great deal. The clear quote of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is also troubling and out of place (when Janus leads his children to the train, with his arms outstretched, it is a near-perfect parody of Richard Dreyfuss' character in the final scene of Close Encounters walking towards the alien spacecraft. (and then, the whiteness, the overexposure common to both end sequences.)
There are plenty of other issues with the film, especially in its portrayal of the Polish residents of Warsaw as innocent bystanders, and in its use of Nazi footage and images from the Nazi propaganda machines in its depiction of Ghetto Jews. But that is for a different review.
Although the film itself is admirable, I fear that the final scene is heavyhanded and out of place. In a film that does not provide any hints of highfalutin metaphor (it is, after all, a very plain film, with very little (if any) technical creativity or innovation), an ending such as the one presented is startling and out of place. Perhaps ending one scene earlier, with the train rolling along, fading to black, would have saved a great deal. The clear quote of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is also troubling and out of place (when Janus leads his children to the train, with his arms outstretched, it is a near-perfect parody of Richard Dreyfuss' character in the final scene of Close Encounters walking towards the alien spacecraft. (and then, the whiteness, the overexposure common to both end sequences.)
There are plenty of other issues with the film, especially in its portrayal of the Polish residents of Warsaw as innocent bystanders, and in its use of Nazi footage and images from the Nazi propaganda machines in its depiction of Ghetto Jews. But that is for a different review.