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A poorly done documentary


Considering the subject matter, the film could have been very interesting if the filmmaker had any sense of what he was doing. There was no real theme or examination of what it means to be Jewish. We just get a shallow schmuck traveling around talking about....well, pretty much nothing of interest.

He really came off as a spoiled, ignorant, unfunny brat. His behavior and attitude while visiting Auschwitz was simply deplorable. Even his poorly edited "ending" was at best a lame cop-out.

What was your POINT, Jamie

Eh?

I cannot believe that the producers wasted good money on this garbage.

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I have to agree with you on this.

-- If the film was about the nature of Jewish identity, it almost totally missed the mark. (One possible exception was the interview with A. B. Yehoshua, arguably Israel's leading writer.)
-- If, on the other hand, the film was about how non-Jews perceive Jews, it had the potential to say something profound but wandered aimlessly all over the place.

In the end, the film seemed to be a series of geographical vignettes, with only some being clearly thematically connected.

If "KLM" was attempting to be like "Gentleman's Agreement," Kastner seems to have missed the point of that classic film. In "Gentleman's Agreement," Gregory Peck's character pretended to be Jewish to see how other people would treat someone Jewish. To test them, he told them he was Jewish. If they asked, he said, "Yes, I am." He didn't say, "Why do you want to know? What does it matter? I'm not saying either way, but I might be or I might not be." You can't discern how their reaction to a Jew changes if they don't think their interlocutor is Jewish. Of course, Kastner doesn't have to say if he is Jewish or not. But then don't predicate your film upon the premise that people will treat Jews differently.

Kastner's visit to Poland was a disaster. I have already commented on this in another discussion on the "KLM" board, but I will repeat here that Kastner was unnecessarily rude and flippant. And his comments on Auschwitz told the viewer nothing about either Jewish identity or non-Jewish attitudes towards Jews.

In general, the filmmaker's snide and "cool" ironic side-comments were usually unhelpful for the viewer and often insulting to those who assisted him in making the film.

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