"When a king executes a criminal, it is not strength, but justice; forgiving a criminal is power."
People are transported like animals. Thousands of mouths, the fish open their dry mouths in the crowded train cars, pursing their lips and calling for water anxiously. Like an animal, it carried the corpses of its own companions, and stomped back and forth on the vague flesh and blood. All the corpses were decomposed and incinerated, and there was almost no difference, except for the red clothes outside the camera to show their identities. In an undifferentiated state, all human socialization characteristics have been erased, the same dirty old prison uniform, naked physical examination or pouring into the incinerator, living or dying. Maintaining the minimum needs and losing all dignity to live, people are like animals at this moment.
Rousseau said that it is part of human nature to not want to see one's fellow suffer. The soldiers who lined up with guns had the power to kill at will. They take pleasure in seeing their fellow men suffer, they are utterly enslaved by the state apparatus, and delight in enslaving others. Uniforms neat, strong and orderly, well educated, playing the piano in the rubble, discussing Mozart and Bach. Can man still be called man if he loses all the human nature that Rousseau calls pity?
The officer played by Ralph regards his maids as snakes, rats, worms, and ants. Of course, Jewish women are not human beings in his eyes, so why are "inhuman" creatures tightly clutching his desires? But he fell in love with her. It is always said that faith makes a man a man. The Nazi beliefs annihilated him, and his only remaining humanity is reflected in the moment of erotic indulgence in this basement, and the collision and irreconciliation of the dogma and natural emotions turned into violence. He is violent, majestic, and seemingly powerful, but he is actually cowardly inside. However, this Nazi machine is already a hard cog in the operation of the Third Reich state machine, and after being shaken, it is still unable to choose forgiveness.
So Dai Jinhua asked, "How can someone who understands Bach and Goethe be an executioner at the same time?"
Arendt believes that the evil of totalitarianism lies in the refusal to think and misjudgment. Like the trains that appear repeatedly in the movie, the vehicles that transport Jews, like animals, transport them from suffering to the unknown, from suffering to death, this symbolic tool representing evil, by meticulously performing tasks to the law. Articles of bureaucratic officials. Eichmann, the train designer in Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem", is different from the murderous officer. He is a normal person who has never had blood on his hands. This is the banal evil, or The banality of evil. Human beings, under the enslavement of human beings and under their own judgment, can completely cease to be human beings and become truly "animals".
What makes Schindler great is that he made the right judgment, faced the reality, and practiced it. At first he refused to think, deliberately ignoring the Jewish situation, making the most profitable choice from the standpoint of a profit-seeking businessman, and defending the officer. It is entirely for the sake of this camp", "the responsibility is heavy", and "it's just that the war has exposed the evil side of people."
What awakened Schindler was red, life. The red that appeared for the first time shuttled through the chaos of black and white. Red symbolized life. At that moment, Schindler looked down from a height and saw life. When the red appeared for the second time, the girl had already appeared in the corpse. She was no different from the other corpses, except that the red stinged everyone's eyes weakly. Red is no longer life, but death. The disappearance and destruction of an individual life can touch human nature. Schindler has completely changed and made his own choice. In the crazy and abnormal era, he guarded his conscience of human nature. How rare is this? When he cried "why can't I just have one more", the brilliance of life was more dazzling and greater.
Some criticized the film, criticizing "the director knows exactly what the audience will like". However, in this film, I can't see Spielberg's flattery and kitsch. What I see is only humanistic concern and respect for life. The last scene of the Jewish people walking in the wilderness traces back to the precarious and scattered peoples in thousands of years of history. "It's better not to go to the east, nor to the west." "Where can we go?" The tragedy of the Jewish nation has never been a national tragedy, but a human tragedy. Human history has always been so absurd, so cruel, why is the chorus so gentle...
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