The Diary of Anne Frank
1959 Directed by George Stevens
Synopsis
Harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
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I remember genuinely liking this film. Then Jeff Mangum happened. Now it's all time machines and tambourine ladies (>implying it's a potato).
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breaks my heart every time
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The story of Anne Frank was sanitised, presumably to make it suitable for a 1950s audience. There are moments where the fear that those living in hiding would have felt is shown and the stresses of all living trapped in a few rooms were shown well, but the story was spoilt by the American accents, by an actress playing Anne who looked like a young adult rather than a teenager, by actors and actresses who didn't look as if they were sharing rations for 3 between 8, and by a lack of attention to facial make up - Anne looked as if she had just ventured from a beauty salon through the film.
I'm not sure if I'm being over-generous with 7/10, the film did have its moments, but I'm not sure that at all sure they did justice to Anne frank's Diary (which I must read).
Nope it's going down to 6/10. -
Holocaust movies are hard to review because whenever you have something less than glowing to say about them people somehow think it’s because you’re insensitive to the lives they depict. Anne Frank’s diary is sort of a sacred cow of a text, but the truth of the matter is that it’s just a diary written by a child. That seems less apparent when you read it because you feel like you’re looking into a historical artifact, but when you try to make an adaptation it starts to become clear that this story maybe isn’t as compelling as its reputation would have you think. To be blunt, this is the story of people living in an attic. That’s not exactly the most exciting premise in the world and this movie forces you to sit and watch it for the better part of three solid hours.