The movie starts with a violin and scenes of the Jewish ghetto. Jakob is one of many Jews in a German-controlled, Polish ghetto. While walking home one night he is sent by a guard to headquarters. There he hears a brief broadcast that Russian troops are doing well against the Germans. The next day, in a desperate attempt to save his friend from committing a rash act and stealing potatoes, he tells him of the Russian advance. He twists the story and it soon is believed that he possess a radio. In order to protect his exaggeration, he continues to tell more and more lies by pretending he hears them on the radio. His lies have a huge impact on camp, but he eventually needs to tell the truth to his friend Kowalski, who kills himself out of despair for living another day in the ghetto. The Jakob's lie remains largely undiscovered, his street is eventually deported to their presumed death.
At the beginning of watching the movie I was quite sick of seeing another German movie about WW2. However this movie was amazing. I like how it toys with the perception of truth. Plenty of truths are told that are harmful, and lies are told that are good. Furthermore, truth is merely the acceptance of truth and is useful in so far as it accomplishes an act. Though Jakob may never had possessed a radio, his initial statements were disbelieved. The same way a cloud is out of water, though it is really out of tiny drops of frozen water. Though the obvious interpretation is that life in the ghetto was terrible, and that Jakob's lives were pure hearted, it's also a statement on underlying scientific notions that we cannot legitimately achieve through personal work what we can do together. That notion is very clear for an East German movie.
I enjoyed the way the film cut to flashbacks to explain who characters were. It's a short, concise and brilliant method of exposition. The relationships were very well-developed. Rosa and Mischa's courtship was handled well. Although it's obviously sincere, no reasonable parent would approve of such a love in the ghetto.
Though abuses are shown, such as when Herschel Schtamm is killed after investigating a boxcar. Much of the movie focuses on the psychological damage forced by isolation, poverty, and a general racism. The movie knows that abuses are known, it's the stories of relationships that aren't as things like letters and radio were banned. For example, Uncle Jakob's care for his niece, and the niece herself, show a compassion. The explanation of his lamp helps to put emphasis on the love of families that was destroyed, frankly by any organized government and especially that of the 3rd Reich.
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