Pajiba

how does Uwe Boll get funding for his craps?
could someone explain the scam to me?

I was hoping in some way I could maybe defend this. It's the same way I've been hoping that Uwe Boll could actually get a film right for once.

I can't, and he won't.

Even if this is the first minute of what will otherwise be a contemplative drama about a concentration camp and the atrocities of WWII, there is no excuse for this content being filmed and cut like this.

Of course because of the way you set this up, just like the Grizzly Man tape, I had to play it. And now I'm wondering:

Where on earth would this trailer play? It can no way be played on TV. If it were played in my local theatre, it would cause a mass of protest. You couldn't just show it before the regular stuff without major warnings. My local theatre is in a town where in many nursing homes staff are prohibited from using the word "showers" because so many of the residents are Holocaust survivors.

Is this turning what happened into some version of a torture porn flick or is it important that the horror of what happened is candidly portrayed? I'm really intrigued to see where he is going with this. The trailer is absolutely brutal but then so was the Holocaust. I just don't know.

It's horrifying, truly, but then again maybe there's some people who have to actually see something brought to life to fully realize the horror of what was done...I mean, we've all heard the horrific stories, we know what an atrocity it was, but to see those brief clips bringing it to life really cements it and makes my empathy rise about tenfold...like Paddy, I just don't know...

And for the record, although I've heard about him many times on this site, I'm not personally familiar with Uwe Boll's work, so I can't speak to that aspect of it. I wonder if the trailer would be viewed differently had it been produced by a respected director?

tinmo,

That's the point. If a better director made this movie, it would be a better movie.

Uwe Boll is the cinematic equivalent of Stephanie Meyer without the inexplicable success. Do you really want either of any low-talent cliche-monster like them anywhere near epic human tragedy?

Put it this way: The difference between a director like Uwe Boll and a director like Steven Spielberg is the difference between the horrors of the Holocaust and me hugging a Jewish family. Spielberg hugged that shit. Boll will just exploit their pain for profit.

Paddy, you make some very good points, and I think my initial comment was shot from the hip a bit. In retrospect, I'd say that it's not that I don't think that a movie about a concentration camp shouldn't be made.

It's that it shouldn't be made by Uwe fucking Boll.

I took a course in Holocaust studies in high school, and one of a similar ilk related to Evil in college. I don't think it's wrong to bring the public consciousness in on this. As it's been stated, Spielberg did a beautiful, heart breaking job with Schindler's List, and whether you like him or not, Polanski did a brilliant job with The Pianist. These stories do need to be told, and there is some really awful violence that accompanies that. However, there is a difference between healing and hurting. Those films, and many others, open your heart to the atrocities that were at the center of the Holocaust. They raise awareness, and remind the viewer that, guess what, not only did this happen, but there is nothing to suggest it can't still happen. Look at the world around you - it DOES still happen, just on a smaller scale and with less American involvement. It's good to keep us aware. But Uwe Boll is physically incapable of handling this subject with the delicacy, tact, and honor required. You can't just throw a bunch of horrifying images on a screen and expect the reaction that an audiences gives Schindler's List. You have to earn that by being compelling and keeping the humanity in there. The contrast is what matters. Real people did this, real people suffered. This isn't a video game, this isn't torture porn - this was real life. And I don't think he knows how to portray that.

I have no intention of watching this trailer or the movie. But I do think that the subject matter is still relevant and that movies can and should still be made about it.

I could actually see such a movie working with a skilled writer and director. The day to day working of a concentration camp. How the people working there came to be there. How they react to what is going on. What it does to them. I might watch something like that. But, fuck, UWE BOLL?????

And I am sort of a fan of Boll's. The shear stupidity and imcompetence sometimes make for fun movies.

I've never seen anything by Ewe Boll, so I dont have this immediate reaction against him that some people on this site seem to have.

I cant help but think that the almost visceral reaction I experienced while watching this trailer is a good thing. The young-uns from this generation my benefit from something that reaches from the screen and slaps them across the face.

On the other hand, judging from the critique of Uwe Boll's other works, this is probably not going to be that movie.

What strtwise said.

"We're right on the brink of that happening with the Holocaust. I think there are a lot of young people who know it was hideous but who believe it's over and gone and could never happen now. That's a dangerous belief."

Okay. I'm going to express something that I fear will come off the wrong way...but here goes. I think that part of the problem with the way the Holocaust is remembered is that it's set aside from other holocausts as unique and worse. Hear me out: I believe the insistence on the Holocaust's exceptionalism contributes to the belief that it's behind us and that kind of thing could never happen today. Except in Rwanda. And Congo. And Darfur.

As to the trailer, you'd better be damned sure those images are necessary before using them.

No, Samantha t, that's a totally valid point. It also opens up a whole other ugly door, which is the question of why the genocides in Rwanda, Congo, Darfur, etc., are mostly ignored. And part of that ugliness and the ignorance of the events in Africa by the rest of the world likely has to do with skin color and geography. But that's likely a debate for another time.

But your point is well-made. By making it officially the worst ever (and it is, without a doubt), we've somehow convinced ourselves that something that bad can't happen again... and since the massacres in the Africa nations haven't, mathematically, actually been as bad... they don't get as much attention.

Which is really fucked up.

I don't know if I explained that clearly, but let me finish it with the lame cop-out -- if it somehow offended anyone, it very truly was not meant to.

@idle

Northern Canada, and my students are completely average teenagers.

However, having said that I should clarify that I in no way think that this movie is justifiable. My kids get by just fine on selections from Schindler's List and NAPOLA in its entirity.

Here's a question(s) I'd like an honest non-snarky answer to: Since you obviously loathe Boll and everything he stands for and puts his hands on and obviously want him to just disappear forever, then why the fuck are you plugging both him and his new movie by giving it even the leats bit of attention? Is it so you can then turn right around and bitch and shriek and shit your pants when the film debuts at #1 at the box office that this is proof of the stupidity of the people? You can't tell me there aren't otehr things that you could have posted on this site, you just can't.

It's a movie site and it's a slow week for news. Uwe Boll made a movie. Hence, it can be covered by a movie site.

There's your answer, The Mad Fapper. Now go back to your Boll collection and jack off to Postal. I hear the theme park segment is hot.

i am canadian, i remember highschool, though it be more than 20 yrs ago. . .i can imagine what is taught.

i got kicked out of one of my highschools when i complained about a teacher, from an english class, who sought to cleanse us of the mythology of the noble savage, not by breaking sterotypes (positive or negative) but by telling us that the "indians" weren't noble savages or even savages. I kid you not, she told us they were "animals that walk on two legs". and i got kicked out because i walked out of that class and went straight to the principal to complain. history.

@,

I see a difference here. Schindlers list was about WWII and included the concentration camps.
This is a movie solely about one of the worst destruction camps from WWII.

There was this other guy, um
(Works stuff out on google) who made a movie about it, wich I still have to see, but it sounden a thousand times better then anything Mr Boll has touched.

This one: The Grey Zone (2001)
Dir: Tim Blake Nelson.

For the fact, I saw many of Uwe Boll's films, an he is a very bad director. How you can make a lousy movie with Jason Statham is still a mystery to me.

So maybe your right. These films should be made. But not by this man.

I see the name Uwe Boll and all I can think of is 'Boll Weevil'.