03 Dec Jakob the Liar
Jakob the Liar, WWII holocaust film starring Robin Williams
(1999) Robin Williams plays Jakob, a Jewish vendor who lives in a Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Poland. In order to give hope to the other residents who know that their neighbors and friends have been shipped away to unknown horrors he pretends to have a radio. He tells them that he has heard reports that the Germans are losing the war … they just need to hold on. This will all soon be over.
I really wanted to like this movie. After all … the cast includes Robin Williams, Liev Schreiber, and Alan Arkin. It is based on a book written by Jurek Becker a Holocaust survivor who lived in a Polish ghetto and in two concentration camps.
It’s always a bad sign when twenty minutes into a movie I’m checking to see how much longer we have to go. When the story began and Robin Williams was trying to catch, almost comically, a newspaper floating in the air coming down and then soaring up again I thought, “Okay it’s a dramedy.”
Unfortunately, Jakob has to be compared with Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, one of my favorite movies ever. This movie was filmed first, according to Roger Ebert’s review. Neither movie showed how bad it was for the people living through the Nazi horrors, but when I watched Life is Beautiful I cried with emotion. No tears with Jakob.
Roger Ebert remarked about the bizarre ending. A 1940s jazz band and an Andrews Sisters song? Where did that come from?
The only good part about the ending was I knew the movie was over. Click.
No Comments