While documenting the harrowing experience of living in the concentration camps under Hitler's final solution days to a tee, Fateless misses much of the emotional impact that such a powerful story wishes to tell. Granted the translation to English, as well as the overdone topic of the Holocaust in recent cinema, might in and of itself put the viewer at a disadvantage to connect with it's main character's plight, but this discredits the movie's authentic feel. So authentic is this recollection of a most unimaginable reality, that the script in comparison to the imagery on screen does nothing but sterilize the action. What we have here is the source material being coldly and methodically applied to the truly nightmarish, immersive concentration camp experience that this director did strive to capture more thoroughly then any other I've seen. What could have been a movie on par or even surpassing a Schindler's List in terms of realism and authenticity and becoming one of the dominant Holocaust film experiences ends up being a powerfully shot, but emotionally distant piece.
Review of Fateless
