The Devil's Arithmetic (1999)

A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film was a fundamentally good idea. It, however, failed to capture the sheer horror of the Holocaust. Perhaps because its target audience is young persons, we are spared much of the pure violence of men, women and children being executed at the very villages they were being grabbed up from, half of them not even made it to the trains, the site of the piles of gold teeth, glasses, clothing, shoes, at the vast numbers in the camps, at the horror of a sheer gray gown torn and tattered to wear, being forced to strip (men and women) and be laughed at and abused by the butt of a gun, the men, women and children being ordered to spit on the Torah and tear it up or they'd be executed, and at the cramming of four times the maximum number of people into a cattle car, to be hours and days on the rails... the tiny little rat eaten bunks, the muddy floors and the 'no makeup' sickly look of the camp inmates, struggling just to survive, no time to reminisce or socialize. The rape, the murder ongoing, random castration or killings for fun by the SS. The psychological games played by the camp guards to torture the minds of the inmates.These are all omissions that represent only touching the surface of the heavy deep waters of the Holocaust 'experience' that this film does not quite address. It's about tears and terror, true, but it could have gone a lot deeper into the horror.I give it an 8 for effort and hope. And for the transition of a young girl opening the door for the Prophet Elijah, to awaken in Nazi Germany as if a reminder of how grateful she might be to God for having not been forced to endure the cruelty of the Eugenics Master Race ideologies of certain financial Americans and their Nazi Germany partners, among them Paul Josef Goebbels and Adolf Hitler. The REALITY of the Holocaust was far, far worse than this movie tells.

First of all, remember this is a low-budget made-for-TV show that crams way too much stuff into too little time, suitable for viewing for just about any audience, dealing with the most difficult and harrowing subject matter of the past 100 years through the eyes of a shallow self-centered post-Reagan brat by some cosmic wrinkle in order to set her straight. When you consider all that it's not all that bad and probably a fairly good way to introduce younger children to the subject matter without giving them the nightmares like Schindler's List might do. The weakest performance is that of Kristin Dunst who at times (perhaps more often than not) seems like she's on prozac, and if you can get over that and the simplistic stereotypes then give it a shot. I only wish they had cast someone for the main character who tried harder to connect with her character when she experienced devastating things like being ripped away from her family by time instead of seeming mildly put out - but then part of that was also bad writing due partly I'm sure to time and budget constraints.

I thought that the book was better than the movie. I felt like i was in the 1800's most of the movie. Some of the characters were not included in the movie. Though there was many negatives in this movie there was also some positives. These positives were. The movie had a good story line. A great climax, and rising action. It showed what the Jewish people had to go through. out of all the positives and negatives i give this movie an over all rating a 4 out of 10. I would like to thank some people as my closeing statement. I would like to thank my teacher Mr. Pagogna for introducing me to this title. I would like to thank the author for writing a great book. it grabed my attention right away.

I think it is a really good movie, though the ending was a bit too short and too fast, I would have liked them to spin some more drama and emotions on the fact, that Hannah had the experience she had in regards to Aunt Eva. I was a little disappointed by that. Like the feeling of something not ended. Too bad:), but otherwise a really good movie for people who like the more thoughtfully, slow and emotional movies. I really like the way Kirsten plays the role of Hannah. I'm not really familiar with her acting besides Spiderman, so it was nice to see her in another kind of role. I will definitely consider to read the novel, which the movie is based on. I'm sure it must be worth reading.