The Book Thief (2013)
Directed by Brian Percival
While subjected to the horrors of WWII Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Under the stairs in her home, a Jewish refugee is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.
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14 films that influenced The Book Thief
What critics say influenced The Book Thief
For his novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury took inspiration from Nazi book burnings, among other historical examples of censorship.
His spirit harkens back to Roberto Benigni's character in Life is Beautiful, a man always looking to shield others from the pain of their lives.
The Book Thief, much like 1997's Life Is Beautiful, offers a different perspective.
The most famous, at least for movie buffs, is when the Grim Reaper played chess with Max von Sydow in "The Seventh Seal."
It sort of feels like the filmmakers realized they needed to insert that sort of material into the proceedings and did just enough to get by (as compared to what Tarantino pulled off in various scenes in "Inglourious Basterds" where the volatility and uncertainty of how the various Nazis might behave at any moment created an uneasy electricity throughout).
He will be 'The Invisible Man,' the H.G. Wells book which is Liesel's second steal, nudged out of a Nazi book bonfire in the town square orchestrated by Buergmeister Hermann (Rainer Bock, "Inglourious Basterds," "Barbara").
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BOTTOM LINE Gorgeous photography and a potential new star in 13-year-old Nélisse, but this is the rosiest view of Nazi Germany since "The Sound of Music."
Liesel’s mother, a communist sympathizer fleeing the Nazis, parks Liesel with hateful Rosa (Emily Watson) and kind Hans (Geoffrey Rush) then disappears, leaving Liesel to begin a new life that feels as brightly artificial as The Sound Of Music, particularly where the Nazis are concerned.
It’s not easy portraying Nazis in a PG-13 film without it coming off like “The Sound of Music,’’ even when Liesel is obliged to wear a Hitler Youth uniform.
And frankly its ultimate celebration of the written word—a clichéd message delivered by movies as varied as the reading-is-fundamental, kid-friendly “The Neverending Story” and the piously platitudinous melodrama “The Words”—is getting rather long in the tooth, especially when reiterated in a medium that itself emphasizes pictures over pages.
Australian director Cate Shortland delved deeper into similar territory earlier this year with "Lore."
While films as diverse and powerful as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Lore have offered insightful and moving child's-eye perspectives on the horrors of the second world war, this staid adaptation of Markus Zusak's bestseller comes a cropper as it tries to blend heartwarming moral observation with ill-fitting metaphysical contrivance.
The issue of a German girl who learned the truth about her country’s atrocities in World War II was handled with grace and depth earlier this year in the excellent “Lore.”
Viewers can do better when it comes to child’s-eye perspectives (the recent Lore, about a Hitler Youth left to fend for herself, is breathtakingly bold), and both Zusak and the filmmakers grab at a randomly downbeat conclusion that feels incidental to the evil of the time.
And I thought “The Reader” was exploitative.
Bolstered by the novel’s fans, the Fox release (which opens limited Nov. 8) should ride solid reviews and word of mouth to midlevel prestige returns in line with such comparable medium-scaled WWII dramas as “The Reader” and “The Pianist.”
Sort of a young-adult version of “The Reader,’’ the low-key, English-language coming-of-age drama “The Book Thief’’ centers on an illiterate teenager caught up in the horrors of Nazi Germany.
Here, Liesel - who is illiterate, much like in The Reader - "much like in The Reader" is an unfortunately handy phrase to have ready with this movie - lives with the Hubermanns, kindly and imaginative Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and stern, angry homemaker Rose (Emily Watson), a couple united only by the outrageous awfulness of their German accents.
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It’s the kind of committed, old-soul-in-a-young-body performance that recalls Chloe Moretz in "Let Me In."
Bolstered by the novel’s fans, the Fox release (which opens limited Nov. 8) should ride solid reviews and word of mouth to midlevel prestige returns in line with such comparable medium-scaled WWII dramas as “The Reader” and “The Pianist.”