To start, if this really was nominated as one of the best movies for PG, their expectations have really gone downhill!
As a Jew I'm drawn to Holocaust movies given my family's history. I watched this very late at night since I was trying to go sleep and wanted a short movie so chose this since it was included in my Prime membership.
I'll start with the few positives. The lead actors (really just Adira and Eric) are okay imo especially given that there is little dialogue in the movie. Likewise her parents are okay since they hardly speak as well. I didn't really mind that her clothing, body, and hair looked clean given that I mean she did have water to clean herself so I'll let that one go. The cinematography was nice of what looks like the midwest and not Germany or even Europe. I also liked the simple scenes of her showing what she would do each day. That's all I got.
On to the bad... You can tell this was a student film created by students who really knew very little about Jews or even the holocaust... 1- She wears a huge star of David necklace throughout the movie. No Jew is going to wear that in Europe during this time while trying to survive. 2-For the life of me I couldn't figure out how old she was supposed to be. Was she supposed to be like a 10 year old? They have a scene where the Gestapo finds a little doll. I couldn't tell if that was implied to be hers, or a kid that her parents rescued before. The actress looked like she was in her 20s-early 30s. They show her getting her period 3 years later while living on her own. I'd guess the average age of starting your period is 13 and that she was 10 at the beginning? 3- Gestapo...Doesn't even bother to search her house when he knows there is most likely a kid in their judging by finding a doll. The Gestapo were ruthless checking every nook and cranny. It was like he was saying "Meh, there's a movie I want to catch so I won't bother". 4- The two German soldiers...I agree with views I saw on here and on Amazon that it was like watching Monty Python . It's like you know you shouldn't laugh given who they are and what they did, but it's so bad, that you do laugh. 5- Adira ends up spearing animals with a wooden spear she creates bringing out her inner gave woman. Okay...What's even more ridiculous is that when one of the soldiers tries to attack her (he has a loaded gun), she tries to defend herself with same wooden spear. Yeah...that will do it. 6- Eric (paratrooper) says he saw up close people lining up and getting killed in the gas chambers. An English paratrooper would not have actually been at the camp viewing this up close. Ridiculous thing to say and gives Holocaust deniers more reason to think this was a part of a made up conspiracy. 7- Eric leaves a gun with 2 bullets after Adira runs off after he tells her that her family is probably dead. I didn't know if he left that for her to defend herself, for her to end her life, or if he just accidently left it there out in the open perfectly laid out. 8-Her parents were English Jews (father converted) who moved to Germany to help out her mother's family and other Jews. While this did happen, they wouldn't have brought their children with them out of the UK. WTF? 9-She finds a working radio in an abandoned house that still works. I don't think portable radios even were invented at this time. 10. The fact that she runs from the truck barely out of Berlin to the abandoned farmhouse. This couldn't have been in the middle of nowhere but they implied that it was. It took years for Nazis and soldiers to even find the place? No.
Combine that with this trying to be an arthouse style film with her internal dialogue as she lays down in green fields along with an ending similar to The Notebook...
As a Jew I'm drawn to Holocaust movies given my family's history. I watched this very late at night since I was trying to go sleep and wanted a short movie so chose this since it was included in my Prime membership.
I'll start with the few positives. The lead actors (really just Adira and Eric) are okay imo especially given that there is little dialogue in the movie. Likewise her parents are okay since they hardly speak as well. I didn't really mind that her clothing, body, and hair looked clean given that I mean she did have water to clean herself so I'll let that one go. The cinematography was nice of what looks like the midwest and not Germany or even Europe. I also liked the simple scenes of her showing what she would do each day. That's all I got.
On to the bad... You can tell this was a student film created by students who really knew very little about Jews or even the holocaust... 1- She wears a huge star of David necklace throughout the movie. No Jew is going to wear that in Europe during this time while trying to survive. 2-For the life of me I couldn't figure out how old she was supposed to be. Was she supposed to be like a 10 year old? They have a scene where the Gestapo finds a little doll. I couldn't tell if that was implied to be hers, or a kid that her parents rescued before. The actress looked like she was in her 20s-early 30s. They show her getting her period 3 years later while living on her own. I'd guess the average age of starting your period is 13 and that she was 10 at the beginning? 3- Gestapo...Doesn't even bother to search her house when he knows there is most likely a kid in their judging by finding a doll. The Gestapo were ruthless checking every nook and cranny. It was like he was saying "Meh, there's a movie I want to catch so I won't bother". 4- The two German soldiers...I agree with views I saw on here and on Amazon that it was like watching Monty Python . It's like you know you shouldn't laugh given who they are and what they did, but it's so bad, that you do laugh. 5- Adira ends up spearing animals with a wooden spear she creates bringing out her inner gave woman. Okay...What's even more ridiculous is that when one of the soldiers tries to attack her (he has a loaded gun), she tries to defend herself with same wooden spear. Yeah...that will do it. 6- Eric (paratrooper) says he saw up close people lining up and getting killed in the gas chambers. An English paratrooper would not have actually been at the camp viewing this up close. Ridiculous thing to say and gives Holocaust deniers more reason to think this was a part of a made up conspiracy. 7- Eric leaves a gun with 2 bullets after Adira runs off after he tells her that her family is probably dead. I didn't know if he left that for her to defend herself, for her to end her life, or if he just accidently left it there out in the open perfectly laid out. 8-Her parents were English Jews (father converted) who moved to Germany to help out her mother's family and other Jews. While this did happen, they wouldn't have brought their children with them out of the UK. WTF? 9-She finds a working radio in an abandoned house that still works. I don't think portable radios even were invented at this time. 10. The fact that she runs from the truck barely out of Berlin to the abandoned farmhouse. This couldn't have been in the middle of nowhere but they implied that it was. It took years for Nazis and soldiers to even find the place? No.
Combine that with this trying to be an arthouse style film with her internal dialogue as she lays down in green fields along with an ending similar to The Notebook...