Search - Christopher Nupen - We Want the Light / Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Evgeny Kissin, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman on DVD

Great documentary about the affects of the nazism.

Francisco Yanez Calvino | Santiago de Compostela, GALIZA, Spain. | 02/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the last 60 years we have been watching lot of documents about the effects of the nazi regime that governed Germany in the years just before the World War II. Between the most disappointing things we have to mention the jewish repression and extermination, that took place in different cities of Germany and those countries they conquest, like Poland specially.

This documentary tries to review not only the jew extermination and killing in central Europe but the repression of another minor groups of different ethnic origin, like those who came from the countries under German power or the artists and intellectuals whom were part of Nazis targets.

A very interesting thing in this DVD is the revision of Wagner's works and ideas about the jews, something that creates always a great debate and that it's very well focused here from different points of view. Probably this is the most interesting thing from the point of view of history and musicology in the DVD. From the point of view of the confidences of the human beings who knew the Nazi repression the DVD is a jewel, because it offers the interviews with people who experimented the concentration camps for a long time, in which they took notice of quite all that happened to them. They talk about the musical life during that period, something that always takes our attention in a kind of situation like that. Kissin, Barenboim, Mehta and meny other musicians, most of them jew or with very deep relation with Israel or the jew community, talk in this DVD, much more than playing music. This is a DVD for listening people to talk about some of the most dark days of our history, some of the most disappointing chapters of the last century.

Like all the Nupen's films, the quality is very high in all the aspects; the script is great, the interviews very well done, searching for important replies and letting the survivers to talk, the film edition is really fantastic, like the images they have from archives and from nowadays. Sound is very good too and the general impression is that of being watching a very sensitive and well done documentary about people and fear, about music in that situation, but from a very humanistic point of view.

It's very important not to forget this... to know the past in order to don't repeat the mistakes we did as society.
"

An Excellent Documentary on Modern European History

BLee | HK | 06/05/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"An interesting DVD on the cultural origin of Nazism, going back to the dominance of Prussia, the Protestents and hence modern Germany. It touches upon Mendelssohn focussing on Wagner, ending on Mahler and Schoenberg.

In this film, some of the survivors of the concentration camp-- mostly musicians including a 98 years old lady pianist ( how she reminds me of Horszowski), a violinist and a cellist etc-- talk about their horrifying experience while the screen flashes back onto some pictures of gas chamber rooms full of naked dead bodies of both genders...

The survivors are of course highly cultivated people all speaking very cultured German, with quite a proportion of them changed to and fro into English without noticing it, and neither would the audience as their English are literally perfect. And not withstanding their culture and gracefulness, the imports, however down played, would nonetheless make your hair raise.

And yes, we also have Zukerman telling us about the Jewish way of living, things like they have more music than eating even in a feast! Barenboim expressed his deep distaste for Nazism and Ashkennazy rather mechanically (& I prefer Karajan on this score) conducted a German orchestra, with Kissin playing a piece by Brahms. This is by far more a documentary than a musical production and Nupen is, as usual, a great narrator."

European Jewish Cultural Assimilation

JGArmstrong | 05/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a masterly and comprehensive account of how the Jewish people, living in German speaking Europe, first found cultural freedom and high hopes of being totally assimilated by their host nations. Particularly in Music they became pre-eminent, from Felix Mendelssohn, through Meyerbeer to Mahler, Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. These hopes perished in the Shoah and it was MUSIC, which the survivors interviewed in this Film claim, gave them the courage and strength to survive in the Death Camps."