Tim Blake Nelson's filmization of his own stage play invites viewers once again to be ground under the Nazi boot heel. It poses the timeless question of how low the human animal will sink for survival -- and not even for survival, necessarily, but just "for vodka and bed linens," and a postponed date of execution, at the Auschwitz death camp. The answer, in case you didn't know it, is that some will sink to collaboration with the enemy. A foredoomed uprising among the inmates holds out the hope of a Triumph of the Spirit, if of nothing else. The plot exposition is as murky and impenetrable as the photography. And why must stage dialogue still sound so stagy when moved to the screen? With Allan Corduner, Harvey Keitel, David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Daniel Benzali, Mira Sorvino, Nathasha Lyonne. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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