Syl The story of Anne Frank is retold with actual childhood friends and her protector Miep Gies at 85 years old. The story has been retold countless times but it's an emotional journey of the world's greatest diarist. Anne Frank wanted to be a journalist and her diaries proved to be an invaluable tool in understanding the catastrophe of the Holocaust. Why would Hitler want to kill Anne and her friends and her relatives as well? For the most part, the journey takes from Frankfurt, Germany (Anne's birthplace) to Amsterdam where she and her family lived before they hid in the infamous attic. We get to see the attic from Miep Gies' point of view. The most touching moment is when she meets Fritz Werner Pfeffer (the dentist's son who survived the war in England). He would die two months later from cancer, we are told. The journey takes us to the dreadful camps with the survivors. Many of the Dutch Jews were caught in hiding and the Franks were four of them with four others. Otto Frank would be the only survivor. He was quite a gentleman. I loved Hannah's mother's saying about Anne Frank. She was quite a lively lovely young girl and her sister Margot too. If you get the DVD, you will be disappointed that there isn't anything else on there with special features.

OCOKA I first saw this documentary at the theater when it first came out in the spring of 1996, albeit in a limited art-house release in selected cities (thank God Chicago was one of them). I happened to see it at the famed "Music Box Theater" on Southport Avenue in Chicago to a packed audience (the same theater John Cusack takes his date to on "High Fidelity"). After the credits were over, the audience was so dumbstruck, not a soul moved or said a word until the theater staff turned on all the lights and dropped the curtains -- it was as if people wanted to stay and talk about it. But alas, that wasn't part of the program, and we shuffled off deep in our thoughts, although a few of us caught up later at the coffeeshop next door to talk about it. It was that moving.This is the best documentary on Anne Frank I have ever seen, and is one of the best documentaries to come out of the 1990's. It should not be missed, and should be revisted as often as possible. Kenneth Branagh's narration is gripping and beyond comparison. The tranche de la vie recounting of Anne's as well as her friends' childhood experiences from her former playmates are extremely moving.One of my favorite scenes in this documentary was the meeting filmed in 1995 between Dr. Fritz Pfeffer's (called Albert Dussel by Anne in her diary) son, Mr. Pepper, and Miep Gies. When he said "vielen Dank" to Miep Gies for hiding his father, there wasn't a dry eye in the house, especially when it was revealed that the son later died just weeks after the meeting. The most moving scene, however, was the serendipitously acquired 8mm black-and-white home movie footage of a wedding filmed in June of 1941 on the Merwedeplein in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (the Franks moved to Amsterdam from Frankfurt a.M., Germany in 1933).In the footage, as the bride and groom emerge from the entrance of a three-flat townhouse, the camera pans upward and catches a waving 12-year-old girl waving happily from a second-floor window. The girl is Anne Frank, and is the only motion picture footage of her known to be existence. Anne's brief bout with the silver screen continues to be one of the most haunting reminders of what could've been, hope unfulfilled, and the tragedy that was the Holocaust. A must see for all those interested in history.

williamknott The Diary of Anne Frank is the second best-selling nonfiction book in the world, and for good reason. Nonetheless, sitting through this documentary about her life, which fills in some of the details where the diary left off, I thought, "Just another documentary about Anne Frank." I found it to be competent but not extraordinary. That was my complacent attitude because I was already well aware of the story of Anne Frank; most of what the documentary had to tell me wasn't news to me.Everything changed, though, when I got to the end of the documentary---when I saw the motion picture footage of Anne Frank. The emotional impact of seeing this footage, only a second or so long, made everything that came before it a thousand times more real---but not just everything that was in the documentary; everything I had previously known about Anne Frank suddenly became more real to me, more personal. I'd always been moved by her story, but when I saw that footage, what I felt was stronger and deeper and more profound than any other film experience of my life. (I knew beforehand that this documentary contained live footage of Anne Frank, and I'd even seen the footage in a movie review on television, but seeing it in the context of the documentary was a completely different experience. It's not likely that my mentioning it here will spoil it for anyone.)I realize now that many people still don't know the story of Anne Frank; it's discouraging at times to be witness to this kind of ignorance. I think to myself, "How could someone NOT know the story of Anne Frank?" This being the case, though, ANNE FRANK: REMEMBERED, along with reading her diary, is the best place to start. It's a story that everyone should know.

onlyme As good as Schindler's List was, I found this movie much more powerful as it is a documentary and based on real life. It details the story of the Frank family, and Anne in particular. Although it is a bit slow moving at first (detailing their family life before the war); it becomes very powerful.Due to some of the footage and photos of the camps, I would not recommend it for children but for adults, it illustrates the horror of the Holocaust through one young girl. Highly recommended.