The first third of "Kapo" is powerful and affecting. The rest, despite the surface realism, borders on the ludicrous.
I doubt that any filmmaker can create a fictional movie that thoroughly encompasses the Holocaust, because it was experienced by such a diverse group of people. In "Kapo," director Gillo Pontecorvo tries earnestly to tell the story of a French teenager who, separated from her Jewish parents, determines that she will survive no matter what. Edith (Susan Strasberg) assumes the guise of "Nicole," a non-Jewish political prisoner who escapes the gas chamber and finds refuge in a group of other female prisoners assigned to a labor camp, where the Nazis essentially work the inmates to death rather than exterminate them outright.
Surviving the labor camp ultimately means becoming a ruthless stooge of the Nazis, and Edith/Nicole's descent into inhumanity is believable, up to a point. She becomes a thief, then a whore for the SS guards, and finally a brutal "Kapo," a privileged prisoner who supervises the other inmates. However, the transition accelerates to a point that the viewer is left wondering just how quickly it is occurring, and just how Edith/Nicole can shed her last shreds of sympathy and compassion for the other prisoners. She enters into a odd friendship with one of the German SS guards (Gianni Garko), but that interesting development is pursued only a little.
Instead, a hunky Russian soldier, Sascha (Laurent Terzieff), arrives with a POW work detail, and, after almost getting him killed by the Germans, "Nicole" falls in love with him -- and "Kapo" starts to tread into Hollywood (or Cinecitta) silliness. (Falling in love with a soldier of the Red Army, rather than with an SS man, would have much more politically correct in 1959 Italy). Nicole's reverse transition from the amoral Kapo to a smitten adolescent, and the love scenes between Strasberg and Terzieff, are simply not believable in the context of what is seen earlier in the film. I suppose the filmmakers would argue that the love affair between "Nicole" and the Russian soldier was necessary to set up the final plot sequence: as the victorious Red Army approaches their camp, the female prisoners and Russian POWs plot a mass escape to forestall their massacre by the fleeing German guards. The denouement of "Kapo" is, perhaps, visually realistic, but it doesn't really mesh with the story of Edith/Nicole that emerges in the early part of the film.
That first 25 or 30 minutes of "Kapo" are powerful and wrenching, as Edith is torn away (seemingly with no warning) from what appears to have been a relatively comfortable, middle-class existence in Paris (as comfortable as it could have been for French Jews in 1942-43) and transported to what we quickly recognize as Auschwitz. In a matter of minutes, Edith is plunged into near-surreal terror and then stripped of her old identity in order to survive as "Nicole." It is a sequence that promises much, which is why I found the rest of the film such a disappointment.
I will not profess expert knowledge of the Holocaust, and perhaps the story told in "Kapo" could have happened. Pontecorvo and co-writer Franco Solinas did extensive research, and "Kapo" certainly has visual authenticity compared with various documentaries I've seen on the subject. Strasberg is effective in her role as Edith/Nicole; the other actors are credible given the roles they have to occupy. There is a noticeable problem with language; the film is in Italian, which the various nationalities represented among the camp inmates all seem to speak fluently and interchangeably; but a key scene involves an inmate translating the camp commandant's speech from German into -- Italian? How many Italian speakers would have been in such a camp? "Kapo," however, ultimately founders on the unbelievable relationship between "Nicole" and Sascha that dominates the second half. I just couldn't buy it.
I doubt that any filmmaker can create a fictional movie that thoroughly encompasses the Holocaust, because it was experienced by such a diverse group of people. In "Kapo," director Gillo Pontecorvo tries earnestly to tell the story of a French teenager who, separated from her Jewish parents, determines that she will survive no matter what. Edith (Susan Strasberg) assumes the guise of "Nicole," a non-Jewish political prisoner who escapes the gas chamber and finds refuge in a group of other female prisoners assigned to a labor camp, where the Nazis essentially work the inmates to death rather than exterminate them outright.
Surviving the labor camp ultimately means becoming a ruthless stooge of the Nazis, and Edith/Nicole's descent into inhumanity is believable, up to a point. She becomes a thief, then a whore for the SS guards, and finally a brutal "Kapo," a privileged prisoner who supervises the other inmates. However, the transition accelerates to a point that the viewer is left wondering just how quickly it is occurring, and just how Edith/Nicole can shed her last shreds of sympathy and compassion for the other prisoners. She enters into a odd friendship with one of the German SS guards (Gianni Garko), but that interesting development is pursued only a little.
Instead, a hunky Russian soldier, Sascha (Laurent Terzieff), arrives with a POW work detail, and, after almost getting him killed by the Germans, "Nicole" falls in love with him -- and "Kapo" starts to tread into Hollywood (or Cinecitta) silliness. (Falling in love with a soldier of the Red Army, rather than with an SS man, would have much more politically correct in 1959 Italy). Nicole's reverse transition from the amoral Kapo to a smitten adolescent, and the love scenes between Strasberg and Terzieff, are simply not believable in the context of what is seen earlier in the film. I suppose the filmmakers would argue that the love affair between "Nicole" and the Russian soldier was necessary to set up the final plot sequence: as the victorious Red Army approaches their camp, the female prisoners and Russian POWs plot a mass escape to forestall their massacre by the fleeing German guards. The denouement of "Kapo" is, perhaps, visually realistic, but it doesn't really mesh with the story of Edith/Nicole that emerges in the early part of the film.
That first 25 or 30 minutes of "Kapo" are powerful and wrenching, as Edith is torn away (seemingly with no warning) from what appears to have been a relatively comfortable, middle-class existence in Paris (as comfortable as it could have been for French Jews in 1942-43) and transported to what we quickly recognize as Auschwitz. In a matter of minutes, Edith is plunged into near-surreal terror and then stripped of her old identity in order to survive as "Nicole." It is a sequence that promises much, which is why I found the rest of the film such a disappointment.
I will not profess expert knowledge of the Holocaust, and perhaps the story told in "Kapo" could have happened. Pontecorvo and co-writer Franco Solinas did extensive research, and "Kapo" certainly has visual authenticity compared with various documentaries I've seen on the subject. Strasberg is effective in her role as Edith/Nicole; the other actors are credible given the roles they have to occupy. There is a noticeable problem with language; the film is in Italian, which the various nationalities represented among the camp inmates all seem to speak fluently and interchangeably; but a key scene involves an inmate translating the camp commandant's speech from German into -- Italian? How many Italian speakers would have been in such a camp? "Kapo," however, ultimately founders on the unbelievable relationship between "Nicole" and Sascha that dominates the second half. I just couldn't buy it.