, certainly the most brutal and compelling film we've seen thus far. Students were asked to write an essay on the nature of Evil and Heroism. Here's part of the response from Lucas Annunziata:Murder and abuse
left and right.
Why, oh why is there no end in sight?
Senseless death systematic eradication
A country brainwashed turning to annihilation
of people who call themselves Jews.
One man's dream,
An entire world's nightmare.
Evil. It is the darkness that haunts us when the sun goes down and silence is our only companion. It flows in and out and all around us; impenetrable by light and unbanishable by man, for man is the perpetrator of all that is evil in the world. Man hath given birth to this infernal hell spawn, and now that he has eaten the placenta that is negative human emotions, he is strong, agile, and immortal. He imparts his dark gift into the heart of each of us, and now it is our responsibility to keep him under lock and key, never allow him to rise to the surface and use our bodies as tools of destruction. Unfortunately, there are those who were never given a key, and as such their cages and their willpower is as weak as the child's body from which they have grown. In the film Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg, Evil is portrayed in human form by the man Amon Goeth. In all my years of viewing horribly depraved murder on the internet, in film, and read in books, never have I seen so much senseless killing as I have with that man on the dominant side of the barrel. He pulls the trigger not to end the life of another human being, but to do nothing more than squash another insect that's being a pest to him. He is able to disassociate the idea of Jews from the human race, and thus is able to commit such horrible acts. Viewing these evil actions evoked a response in me that very few other films have: a feeling of disgust. It was almost as if a layer of dirt and grit coated my body during the course of the film because seeing such depraved acts of indifference I just wanted to wash away the that which had stained me. Unfortunately, no amount of soap and hot water will be able to change what has happened. I believe that the girl in the red coat was in the film to symbolize Schindler's first emotional response to the horrors that were occurring right under his nose. Before seeing the vivid, crimson coat, it was as if the events happening didn't affect him in a negative manner. Afterwards however, something changed inside that man, and he transcended from apathetic to heroic.
