Schindler’s List (1993) 9.30pm, Monday, TG4

Schindler’s List is the most remarkable, harrowing and disturbing lm in modern cinema history. That such a potent lm about the Holocaust should have been made by a Hollywood director is startling: that it was directed by Steven Spielberg, the master of escapism, is nothing short of miraculous.

Based on the Booker Prizewinning novel by Thomas Kenneally, this is the story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler who, at the beginning of the war, made untold pro ts exploiting the new-found availability of cheap Jewish labour, yet by the end was ultimately responsible for rescuing 1,100 Jews from the gas chamber. For three hours and 15 minutes, Spielberg recounts the tale of this complex and extraordinary man. In so doing he presents a mainstream audience with an unprecedented glimpse at the unspeakable horrors that accompanied what the Nazis euphemistically termed The Final Solution.

Beautifully photographed by Janusz Kaminski, Schindler’s List boasts three extraordinary central performances - Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, his Jewish accountant, and Ralph Fiennes as SS Hauptsturmfuher Amon Goeth.

Two images in particular will live long in the memory. One is a moment of epiphany when Schindler realises that a little girl who has been catching his eye with her red dress (the only colour image of the lm) has joined the list of fatalities and, almost for the rst time, the true horror of the situation dawns upon him. The other is the sight of Schindler stepping outside his apartment into what he presumes to be a snowstorm only to realise, on closer examination, that the snow on his car window is, in fact, ashes from the local camp.