Let's start with the summary... Eva Kor is a survivor not only of the terrible Auschwitz death camp, but more particularly, Dr. Joseph Mengele. For those of you who are unaware, Dr. Mengele is also known as The Angel of Death...and rightly so. He was the "on-site doctor" who was probably second in line to being the sickest Nazi alive behind Hitler himself. We could call him an "experimental" doctor, or we could just call him sick.

 Perhaps his favorite subjects were twins. He liked to do compare their reactions and perform surgeries such as switching out their eyeballs to see if they would work in their brother/sister. Unbelievable, I know. Anyways, Eva and her twin sister Miriam were sent straight to Dr. Mengele's twin quarters upon their arrival at Auschwitz. The rest of their family was sent straight to the gas chambers. They both survived and were liberated in April 1945, but obviously were extremely damaged. The film goes on to tell the story of how Eva comes to "forgive" all of the Nazis, including Dr. Mengele himself and the opposition from other Mengele survivors. We learn about her family, her quest to keep society informed about the Holocaust, and even an attempt to make peace between the Israelites and the Palestinians.

If you're thinking "umm, what?" at the Israel/Palestine thing, you're not alone. This scene did absolutely nothing to further the story. Hercules and Pugh probably kept it in there because it was expensive to film, and they wanted to make sure it was included. I understand this as a filmmaker, but at the end of the day if it makes your film worse, don't put it in the piece! This is an example of stubborn film making. All that happened here is we learned that Eva has her own prejudices that she doesn't want to let go. The rest of the film talks about her forgiving and speaking out against prejudice. Um, what? Also this part was just really boring and it took us away from the rest of the film, allowing my mind to wonder and not really pay attention.

Let's talk about her forgiving the Nazis. Yes it is an amazingly admirable feat, however I'm not sure that that's exactly what she did. Her reason for forgiving the Nazis she claims, is to allow herself to move on and allow herself to have some peace. I think forgiveness of something this caliber is not easy to put your finger on. She says that "It is time to forgive, but not to forget." Regardless of this statement, her quest to make sure everyone knows what the Nazis did to her (building museums, speaking at schools, etc in an accusing, and almost vengeful manner) almost negates that notion of complete forgiveness because of the way she goes about doing it. Clearly I can't judge her heart, and I can't put my finger on exactly what complete forgiveness entails when it comes to something this huge and this emotional, but at the end of the day the filmmaker didn't do a good job of convincing me that's what she did. They tell us she has, but allowed footage that suggested otherwise.

I wish that we would have had a little more background about Mengele and the grotesque-ness of his "practice." What I told you about him above, wasn't really touched on in the film. They definitely portrayed him as a vile, sick individual, but I think that we would have sympathized with Eva even more had they gone into a little bit more depth here. Another thing I wish they would have paid more attention to was Eva's wardrobe. She wore the exact same jacket and scarf in more than half the film (interviews and b-roll included). These things are important because it takes the audience out of the film to wonder "did they film this all in one day, or does she just really like that outfit?" Instructing your subject what to wear is Film making 101.

All in all, I'd say that this film is worth a watch. You'll definitely sympathize with our protagonist. It's very thought provoking in the sense that you're not sure whether or not she's actually forgiven the Nazis, or even what that should look like. I just wish that Hercules and Pugh would have made that the premise of the film. The audience member wouldn't be so confused during the movie and would instead be concentrating on Eva's struggle to forgive.  This blog post would look much different had that happened.