Korczak (1990)

• Year: 1990
• Released: 06 May 1990
• Country: Poland, Germany, United Kingdom
• Adwords: 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099949/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/korczak
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Polish, German
• MPA Rating: Unrated
• Genre: Biography, Drama, War
• Runtime: 118 min
• Writer: Agnieszka Holland
• Director: Andrzej Wajda
• Cast: Wojciech Pszoniak, Ewa Dalkowska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska

7.4/10

Korczak Storyline

Account of the last days of life of the legendary Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his heroic dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war. Jewish doctor Henryk Goldszmit, known also as Janusz Korczak, is a man of high principles. He is unafraid of shouting at German officers and frequently has to be persuaded to save his own life. His orphanage, set up in a cramped school in the Warsaw ghetto, provides shelter to 200 homeless kids. Putting his experimental educational methods into practice, he installs a kind of children’s self-government, whose justice is in a big contrast to what is happening in the outside world. Right in front of the school, dozens of kids are dying or being killed everyday and their naked bodies lie on the street unattended. Ghetto’s mayor assures Korczak that the orphanages will be saved. Korczak raises food and money for the orphanage from the rich Jews. In the final roundup he refuses to accept a Swiss passport and boards the train to Treblinka with his orphans.

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Korczak Movie Reviews

A masterpiece about war, ghetto and Jews

A great, tragically truthful and sincere film. It is the work of art that leaves you with a heavy heart and with very sad, low mood. Mr. Wajda did a marvelous job depicting the tragedy of Dr. Janusz Korczak, a famous Polish Jew who was a writer, a doctor and who loved children with all his big heart. This black and white movie is very slow, tragic and merciless. The war is shown as it was – bloody, ruthless, cold-blooded and unbearable. The scene when the Nazi film crew makes a film in the ghetto is simply unutterably dark, especially when real documentaries creep in and you can see dying and dead people, skinny kids, sad faces and horrible ruins of Warsaw houses. The central story is excellent, as Dr. Korczak does his best in the horror of the ghetto trying to allow his 200 kids to live well as if there is no war outside. The final scene when the train carries them all to the death camp Treblinka makes your heart stop and when Wajda adds a symbolic final when all the children and their Doctor leave the train and go to the foggy morning, happy and kidding, made me cry. I was not able to stop my tears, my heart still aches now, when I recollect the scene of the happy children walking with the Jewish flag held high, and when you know that in fact they all suffocated in a gas chamber, while Korczak was telling them fairy tales just to make their deaths a bit sweeter if that was ever possible… A great, grand, moving work, and if there are people who did not cry after watching it, they have no heart. Thank you, Mr. Wajda. People like you will make us never forget that cruel war…

Rather moving than brilliant

Korczak, directed by Andrzej Wajda, retraces the last episode of the life of Henryk Goldszmit, internationally renowned Polish writer and pediatrician. Author of books on the education of children, he ran an orphanage in Warsaw which had to be transferred to the ghetto. He stayed until the end with the 200 children he had gathered by accompanying them, on August 6, 1942, to Treblinka camp. A true hero, he went to his death so that the children of the Warsaw orphanage would have a friend with them at the end. The script, one of the five that Agnieszka Holland wrote for Wajda’s films, unfolds the events in chronological order. It all began in 1936, with anti-Semitic pressures that ended in the removal of Henryk Goldszmit’s program on child rearing, although he chose to Polish his name with Janusz Korczak. Korczak, with its factual relationship to history, without spectacular effects, avoiding as far as possible images that are too shocking, announces Schindler’s List, which Steven Spielberg achieved three years later. Korczak owes much to the sober and fair playacting of Wojciech Pszoniak, one of the great Polish actors familiar with the work of Andrzej Wajda: we saw him in seven Wajda essays, including Danton (1983), The Wedding (Wesele, 1973) and The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana, 1975). Among the best dramatic films related to the Holocaust which I have seen I’m afraid I wouldn’t include the TV series Holocaust or Inglourious basterds (2009) or Life is beautiful (1997) – which, by the way, WERE NOT biopics, but I’d place Korczak (a biopic) among the give-or-take 20 best, just after Judgment at Nurenberg (both versions), The pianist (2003) Au revoir les enfants, Schindler’s list, Enemies, a love story (1989), Amen (2002), Nuit et brouillard (1956), The diary of Anne Frank (both versions), The reader (2008), Europa Europa (1990), The pawnbroker (1964), The boy in the striped pyjama, Denial (2016), Fiddler on the roof (1971), Ida (2015), Woman in gold and Playing for time.

Riveting

Moving, exciting, amazing. Perfect script, wonderful direction. Simply perfect. I have no idea why it’s not much seen (maybe because it’s in Polish).

An amazing story about an amazing person, which makes you want to read more about him. I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I sensed references to them in the movie.

Both in black-and-white and take place during the holocaust, I don’t like the comparison but Korczak is so much better than Schindler’s List in so many ways. First- the story. This one is interesting. It’s touching, it doesn’t soften anything. I mention this because Schindler (the movie) was hugely successful and highly appreciated. This is a real must see.