Transport z ráje (1963) User Reviews

After World War II portrayal of Teresiensdatd during the Nazi rule.

[petarmatic · 8/10 · 16 March 2015]

There is no better way to portray Nazi times then in black and white. This film can not be as good as Schindler's list, but it comes close. Brutality and savagery of Nazi regime is portrayed in this film extremely well. If you want to see masterpiece of the Czech cinematography after World War II, this is a film to see.

This a film to see anyways, politically as well as an example of the excellent film making in the early 1960*s what was then Czechoslovakia.

I especially liked how they succeeded to portray brutality and savagery of the Nazis, especially the visiting commander in the glasses.

All in all I strongly recommend that you obtain this film and watch it. You will be pleasantly surprised!

Engrossing drama of the Terezin Ghetto

[Akzidenz_Grotesk · 9/10 · 28 March 2010]

It's the starkness and the banality of Ghetto life contrasting with the intense human dramas that make this film memorable.

The brutality of the Nazis and their obsession with statistics and order is well shown.

This is one of those films that only black and white photography has the power to portray effectively.

This film of the Ghetto Jews' grim reality of processing and subjugation is not something you will ever forget, with the Jewish characters' all to brief time on screen and individual their stories intensifying your pity of their fates.

Transport from the Terezin Ghetto.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 28 June 2019]

In the New Year sale I decided to order £10 worth of Czech DVDs by UK DVD company Second Run. Choosing Larks on a String & Intimate Lighting (1969 and 1965-both reviewed) I went for the first title that appeared on the page as the third movie. Having watched Larks and Lighting recently,I got set to view the final of the three discs.

View on the film:

Filmed in the real Terezin Ghetto, co-writer/(with Arnost Lustig) director Zbynek Brynych & cinematographer Jan Curik present an utterly harrowing atmosphere, which dissects the Czech New Wave (CNW) stylisation with a almost documentary rawness of slightly out of focus interviews, jagged whip-pans attempting to film a unfolding event, and random lone shots of walls/buildings, (like those at the end of a reel of film.) Brynych's presentation makes a subtle comment on the manipulating manner film can be used (a staged "documentary" is shown being made,where the Nazis force the prisoners to say everything is going fine at the Ghetto for the film.)

Keeping a lone sliver of Jiri Sternwald's score, Brynych (who was joined by fellow CNW film maker Juraj Herz,who has a small role and was second assistant director) brings a delicate minimalist touch to the soundtrack,as long, silent walks of the prisoners crackles with the landing of feet on the dry ground, and the growing noise of planes coming nearer in the final days of WWII,being matched by the increasing whistles from the train departing to take prisoners to camps. A survivor of The Holocaust ( a train taking him to his death in Dachau was dive-bombed by a US fighter-bomber) Arnost Lustig's (who said on the film: "The movie sometimes goes beyond the book.") intelligent adaptation of his own book with co-writer Brynych avoids any War Film stereotypes to instead hit a realist tone of the Nazis degrading/ sending the prisoners to death,in a chillingly casual manner, whilst the victims are dragged into doing depressing, mundane tasks until the train to the camps returns to the Ghetto.