Spielberg strikes again with Schindler's List, one of the most emotionally gripping movies ever made, a grim though vital account of German businessman Oskar Schindler's (Liam Neeson) covert efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust. The most striking visual symbol in the movie appears as Schindler notices a girl in a red coat in the Kraków Ghetto, and later sees her corpse being loaded onto a cart to be burned, which is very much the tipping point in convincing him to act. Spielberg's decision the colour the girl's coat red inside of an otherwise monochromatic frame is an easy though potent visual metaphor: the colour and vitality of the red represents life and innocence, strewn amid what are clearly grim, lifeless circumstances. On a more simple, visceral level, it's an image of two dead children, which is always going to strike up strong emotions in people, as this is seen as a perversion of the natural order of things. We live, we grow old, we die, or at least we're supposed to: anything else is just haunting.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
