Schindler's List and A Long Way Gone - Movie Review Example

War Introduction War would be best understood as the opposite of peace. It refers to a planned and usually prolonged conflict between states or tribes within a state. War is generally catastrophic and is linked with social network disruption, extreme violence as well as economic obliteration. After war breakout, people are usually left traumatized and devastated. In most cases, war is fueled by political factions pursuing their individual interests, thus often referred to as political violence. While many scholars perceive war as an intrinsic nature of human beings, others argue that war only becomes unavoidable under certain socio-cultural scenarios. The trauma theory focuses on how trauma links with memory. It developed in the 20th century, which was marred with violence and distressing experiences. This paper explores war as a traumatic event by giving special attention to the movie Schindlers List and the book War and Peace. “Schindlers List” The movie Schindlers List is a classical movie that revolves around Oscar Schindler, focusing on his rescue of a multitude of Jews the concentration camps of the Nazi during World War II. Schindler, just like any other person in the film is erroneous, which gives the movie authenticity and makes it heart-wrecking. Schindler’s love for women was his major weakness, which made him to rescue women of Jewish origin. As a Nazi, everyone expects him to be anti-Jews and play part in the extermination of the Jewish race, which the Nazis were so determined to eradicate. Schindler, who owns a company, strategizes on getting free labor from the Jews. Parting with free labor is indeed of little value compared to what the Nazis are taking away from them outside Schindler’s company. Freedom from destruction overshadows the tribulations of the Jews as they are maliciously killed in the war. In fact, the Jews ask him to let more of them into the company to offer free labor so they can escape death. Even though Schindler appears to have a heart in the middle of war, he surely does it for his own end in as much as the war victims also gain from his act. He eventually spends all the money generated from his company to help the Jews. The movie also gives further insight into World War II through the lives of other characters like Amon Goeth. Goeth emerges as a cruel and hypocritical scoundrel. He enslaves a Jew, who does everything for him and later falls for her. War is characterized by extreme violence. Goeth goes to the balcony and indiscriminately shoots at the Jews while his lover (slave), Helen hitch watches helplessly in dismay. Goeth seems unperturbed by her. This disgusting incident must have been one of the most traumatic experiences in Helen’s life. When he excuses a child from not cleaning a bathtub, Goeth portrays a different picture of him. However, ten seconds is what it takes to unmask his true identity when he shoots the child. In Schindlers List, death and trepidation about death completely takes control of the lives of the Jews. Various episodes are pervaded with images of death. People are executed, mostly by indiscriminately shooting them on their heads. This execution approach is displayed repetitively in the movie exhibiting the atrocities and traumatic life experiences that the Jews had to endure at the hands of the Nazis. An SS officer shoots the one-armed man who shows gratitude to Schindler in the head. What follows is a creepy scene of blood oozing from the man’s head staining the snow around the place. Later on, Goeth issues instructions for the killing of a woman engineer, a Jewish, after she reveals to Goeth a hazardous construction blunder. She is shot in the head and like the one-armed man, her blood flow from the head concealing the snow around. Basically, the blood that oozes out of the victims’ heads is metaphorical presentation of the Jewish race bloodshed. Further in the film, Goeth tries to shoot a rabbi in the head at the labor camp, Plaszów. Goeth’s gun jams as he makes several attempts to shoot the rabbi. The rabbi narrowly misses death staring at his face. As such, the movie Schindlers List is an epitome presentation a war scenario revealing the harsh life for the Jews during the war. Its setting reflects on the life that the Jews lived at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” Ishmael Beah’s novel A Long Way Gone is a personal memoir that reflects the author’s life amidst civil war that rocked Sierra Leone. Beah unwillingly turns into a boy soldier during the war. At the age of twelve, Beah is ambushed in the course of his rap performance with friends. In the middle of bewilderment, brutality and uncertainty caused by the on-going war, Beah, his brother together with other friends become vagabonds. They wander from one village to another searching for food and shelter. Life becomes miserable for the boys as they try to survive, stealing food from children-perhaps, something that they would never do under normal conditions. Beah finally gets recruited as a child soldier in the army where he turns into a killing machine, something he dreaded before. He says, “We walked around the village and killed everyone who came out of the houses and huts” (126). At this point, the readers cannot help but develop a somber mood. Melancholy becomes a major post war phenomenon. The army gets him to believe that he may avenge his family’s execution by killing the rebels. Beah gets addicted to drugs such as marijuana, cocaine as well as “brown brown”, which help the soldiers to suppress their emotions and fill them with courage as they fight in the war. He soldiers on as a lethal part of the army until the Lieutenant of the army faction hands over all boy soldiers to UNICEF. Beah is then referred to rehabilitation center. He tries with difficulty to mirror his past and imagine his future at the rehabilitation centre. Esther, a nurse at the rehabilitation center extends love and affection to the former child soldier. Beah is touched by this care and gives understanding and forgiveness a chance in his heart. In Freetown, he joins his extended family that also extends kindness and support to him. Later on, Beah together with his former fellow boy soldiers gets an invitation to New York City to narrate his story to the United Nations. In the process, he discovers that there are other people who shared the same traumatic experience in war, but survived the ordeal. In New York, Beah meets Laura Simms, a storyteller who later becomes his foster mother. He develops the interest of sharing his war experiences with entire world hopping that it would influence war mongers globally. He envisages that this would rescue other children from experiencing similar horror in the future. When the author (Beah) lands in Freetown from the United States, he realizes that the civilian government has been deposed by the RUF in collusion with the army. He is again caught in the middle of the war. Beah escapes to Guinea following the death of his uncle from where he finds his way back to the United States. Just like the movie, the novel Schindlers List, the novel A Long Way Gone is a recount of the nature of life that people live during war. It exposes all the evils and hardships that individuals go through. War destroys social environments and this is evident when Ishmael says, “This is one of the consequences of the civil war. People stop trusting each other and every stranger becomes an enemy” (37). Conclusion Both the movie Schindlers List and the novel A Long Way Gone, are perfect presentations of war is and the aftermath. Both the movie and the novel invoke a melancholic mood as they lay bare traumatic experience that people contended during World War II and civil war in Sierra Leone respectively. They all exhibit the atrocities that ordinary people have to endure in order to survive. War is brought out as devastating and involves violent acts that destroys social dimension of the society and heighten animosity among individuals. War is usually planned by factions of people in pursuit of their individual interests at the expense of the lives of the multitude as brought out in the movie and the novel. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael. A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.Print. Schindlers List. Dir. Steven Spielberg American, 1993. Film. Read More