I've read some complaints about the graphic nature of the brutality of this film (even to the point of alleging gratuitous liberty with the subject). But it works: there is no way to sugarcoat what happened to the well- & lesser-known victims in the horrific physical, emotional, spiritual environment of the gaschambers & crematoriums of a concentration camp.<br /><br />The film is blunt in its no-holds-barred approach, & despite of the ending's attempt at a poetic touch, effective in getting & holding your attention. Those associated with the film are to be credited & lauded for making the story stand-out above star-recognition. Some scenes are so well shot as if they were stage pieces, effectively heightening the emotional impact of thiese scnes.<br /><br />I think it's become all too possible to become jaded to the events known collectively as the Holocaust (nevermind the relatively unknown horrors of NanKing or Rwanda, or...?). This film does not allow any quarter for dissociation. The routine way in which the graphic results of the gas chambers are displayed for you serve only to increase that horrifying perspective of what we as humans are capable of: not only by inflicting such horror, but by also standing-by & participating, in any manner of self-presevation. The sonderkomado's attempt at an act of redemption in saving The Girl - what a painful wish for a different sort of self-preservation. Once you've compromised so much to save your body, is there anything you can do to save your soul?<br /><br />This is truly one film I would recommend, to get beyond the political, historical storytelling, & to go beyond to really take deep gut-wrenching view of the result of such crimes against humanity. You see the direct results of the violence, but you also see a more complex story of the repercussions of choices made, & a questioning of the cost & meaning of survival.