ma-cortes
In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich chief of Gestapo began to place all Polish Jews in ghettos, where they could slowly die of hunger and disease. The campaign was to be administered by the Waffen-SS the party's military formations that fought as integral units in the armed forces. The Warsaw ghetto was the largest of these segregated areas established by the Nazis in Poland. In 1940 Heydrich, using the excuse that the spread of typhus had to be contained, set up a special section 11 miles in circumference enclosed by a brick wall 10 feet high . The cost was paid by the Judenrat (whose leader named Adam Czerniakow is perfectly played by Donald Sutherland) , the Jewish Council of twenty-four-members, which was in charge of Jewish affairs inside the ghetto . The daily struggle against hunger and disease is aggravated by the German demands for "deportations to the east" that many begin to suspect are camouflaged mass murders . Later on , there takes place the upheaval by a handful of fighters .This is an emotionally tale and very decent drama about a group of Jews from uprising until terrible ending in the Warsaw ghetto . Jon Avnet correctly directs a spellbinding portrait about the holocaust with intense drama , action and spectacular as well as sad scenes . A splendid all-star-cast gives magnificent acting in real-life characters such as Leelee Sobieski as Tosia Altman , David Schwimmer as Yitzhak Zuckerman , Stephen Moyer as Kazik Rotem, Sadie Frost as Zivia Lubetkin , Radha Mitchell as Mira Fruchner , Mili Avital as Deworah Baron and special mention to Hanz Azaria who is excellent in a complicate and suffering role . An of course , we can not forget the great John Voight as Major-General Jurgen Stroop who carried out the brutal repression . Emotive as well as sensitive musical score by the classical Maurice Jarre . Impressive and adequate production by the Spanish Benjamin Fernandez who previously had designed ¨The others¨ and ¨Daylight¨ . Evocative and atmospheric cinematography by cameraman Denis Lenoir . Adding more details over largely described on the movie regarding 'the Warsaw ghetto uprising', the events happened on the following manner : From 300 to 400 died daily in the Warsaw trap. More than 43.000 starved to death during the first year. Children crazed by hunger crawled through the sewers to the non-Jewish sectors of the city to smuggle in a bit of food. People were no longer moved by the sight of men and women falling dead on the streets. The Nazi authorities began intensified measure on July 22, 1942. As a memorial to Heydrich, Heirich Himmler ordered all Jews except those already in concentration camps to be deported .The ghetto and all labor camps would then be destroyed. Mass deportations to the gas chambers of Treblinka began. In two months 300.000 Jews were eliminated. The Judenrat was ordered to deliver 6.000 Jews daily for deportation. Each day thousands were driven by guards through the gates.Young Zionists, pioneers training to go to Palestine, mobilized first to be followed by members of the Polish workers party . On July 28, 1942, the Jewish Combat organization consisting about 1.000 men and boys was formed. All resolved to kill as many of their tormentors as they could before they died.The Jews fighting from rooftops, cellars, and attics,Poles outside the ghetto now began to send in more revolvers, grenades, and dynamite. In 1943 the guerrillas divided into twenty-two groups built an intricate network underground cellars and tunnels ,linked with command posts . In April 19,1943 German troops moved in on the ghetto to send all who were left to Treblinka in a final action. First came the armed trucks, tanks, and armored cars. The ghetto fighters poured a hail of bullets, grenades and bombs, the fighting went on for twenty-eight days. The guerrillas fought to the last . Many committed suicide at the moment before capture. The Germans dragged survivors from the cellars and rubble. Fewer than 100 escaped, the last 60000 Jews had been exterminated or killed in the explosions and fires.Polish sources reported that the fighters had killed 300 Germans and wounded 1000. From Warsaw Jewish resistance moved to swamps and forests .
Petri Pelkonen
Jewish people living in the ghetto in Warsaw during the second world war decide one day in 1943 they have had enough.They are going to fight back.They get some guns against the Nazies and start killing those bastards.Jon Avnet's Uprising (2001) is a really gripping TV movie.I actually saw it in four parts.The acting is superb.Hank Azaria plays the leader Mordechai Anielewicz and he's very convincing.The way he portrays the rage and all...Only a good actor can make you believe those feelings are real.A good actor does not act at all. David Schwimmer as Yitzhak Zuckerman proves he can be so much more than just Ross Geller of Friends.Leelee Sobieski is brilliant as Tosia Altman.The two legendary actors, Donald Sutherland and Jon Voight are both fantastic.Sutherland gives a mighty touching performance as the Jewish Adam Czerniakow.Voight does the part of the Nazi Maj.Gen.Jurgen Stroop and he's almost scary as that monster.There are also talents such as Stephen Moyer (Simha Rotem), Sadie Frost (Zivia Lubetkin), Mili Avital (Devorah Baron), Alexandra Holden (Frania Beatus) and Cary Elwes (Dr. Fritz Hippler).Uprising is a movie about hope back in the days a man had turned into beast.Of course the hope does come in a very violent form but that's the only way possible against the ruthless enemy.I myself felt a lot of joy every time a Nazi got shot.This movie gives a rare opportunity to see the Jews win.At least for a while.
macduff50
One writer says that the film is historically inaccurate BECAUSE it portrays the Poles falsely. Well, it's not a film about the non-Jewish Poles, it's a film about the Jewish Poles. And while the AK Polish underground organization may have helped the uprising, technical support and so on, the fact is, they weren't in a position to be of much strategic help, simply because of the overwhelming might of the Germany Army of occupation. Remember too, that those Poles who took and active part in the resistance, AK or otherwise, were a very small minority of Poles, just as very few Frenchmen ever fought with the Maquis or other resistance units. That said, I'd be interested to know if the AK, or other Polish groups and let's not forget that the Polish resistance was deeply divided along ideological lines, fighting with itself as well as against the Germans did anything of value to prevent Wermacht units/SS units/ police units from getting to the scene of battle. One suspects they did not, not least because of the high levels of anti-Semitism that existed in Polish society before the war (and again afterward; numbers of concentration camp survivors were murdered in Poland in the aftermath of the German defeat). So the movie is historically accurate in portraying a certain level of anti-Semitism in Polish society. To be absolutely accurate is not possible in a filmed drama, but I would say that the tone of the film, the tone of relations between much of Polish society and Jewish Poland, is generally accurately rendered. It's nice to have a few minor corrections, but they don't change the overall dismal picture of Jewish/Polish relations. Even the great Trilogy indulges itself in a few (moderately) anti-Semitic stereotypes, suggesting that such notions were widely accepted in pre-war Polish society.
jamigre
I'm not going to deliberate, or point out the historical inaccuracies of this film; other posters have already done this. I will instead say how utterly disgusted I was by the portrayal of the Pole during this film. Being of Polish Jewish decent, and having a grandfather who lived through the Warsaw uprising, and having heard first hand of what occurred here, I can only say that this film does a great disservice to the men and women who fought with next to nothing to keep the Germans at bay for over a month. If anything, it should also be pointed out that in all likelihood the uprising would have been a success if the governments of Britain and the United States had come through on their promises, however that information, like so much other vital information about the uprising and the AK is excluded from this film.