The Book thief
So, didn't read the book, did see the movie. it was OK. As others have said, a bit sentimental and weak, but still OK.
The title - the central idea of stealing books which would otherwise be destroyed - is interesting. It's a pretty safe bet than most people who can read and think find book burning and similar negations of the mind to be abhorrent. Denying an entire (previously well educated) nation's knowledge, restricting a population's access to other points of view seems like a grandiose and terrible folly. [Note 1] So: am not a fan of book burning, am not a fan of the motive behind book burning - to present the world in a particular way, and suppress other concepts.
Given this, it is unsettling that the film feeds the audience a massive lie toward the end. Uh, spoiler alert.
"No one intended to destroy
a street named after Heaven.
It was a misread on a map.
No sirens that evening."
Liesel's friends and family are killed in what is presented as an accidental bombing, in 1942. I was intrigued that the bombing of civilians was touched upon at all.
However, the presentation / narrator quoted above implies that the allied bombing targeted, or spared, individual streets. In actuality, the majority of bombers' payloads fell many kilometers from their targets, early in the war, [Note 2] so that by 1942, the allied bombing effort had largely given up on military targets, and switched to bombing cities - that is, deliberately targeting civilians. Residential streets were routinely and intentionally flattened. They did indeed intend to destroy.
NOTE 1: Sadly, the allies did the same thing to the Germans post war - pulping (rather than burning, to avoid accusations of Nazi-style censorship) masses of books, and broadly destroying any works of art and culture that looked a bit suspicious - see, for example, Directive No. 30, "Liquidation of German Military and Nazi Memorials and Museums." 35,000 separate books, including over a decade of textbooks, were listed for destruction, and many others were looted or accidentally destroyed.
Note 2: Look up the "Butt Report" (yes that's its actual name) if you're interested. Essentially, in 1941, only 1 in 4 British planes managed to bomb within 5 miles of their targets in Germany, with worse stats the more important the target.
The title - the central idea of stealing books which would otherwise be destroyed - is interesting. It's a pretty safe bet than most people who can read and think find book burning and similar negations of the mind to be abhorrent. Denying an entire (previously well educated) nation's knowledge, restricting a population's access to other points of view seems like a grandiose and terrible folly. [Note 1] So: am not a fan of book burning, am not a fan of the motive behind book burning - to present the world in a particular way, and suppress other concepts.
Given this, it is unsettling that the film feeds the audience a massive lie toward the end. Uh, spoiler alert.
"No one intended to destroy
a street named after Heaven.
It was a misread on a map.
No sirens that evening."
Liesel's friends and family are killed in what is presented as an accidental bombing, in 1942. I was intrigued that the bombing of civilians was touched upon at all.
However, the presentation / narrator quoted above implies that the allied bombing targeted, or spared, individual streets. In actuality, the majority of bombers' payloads fell many kilometers from their targets, early in the war, [Note 2] so that by 1942, the allied bombing effort had largely given up on military targets, and switched to bombing cities - that is, deliberately targeting civilians. Residential streets were routinely and intentionally flattened. They did indeed intend to destroy.
NOTE 1: Sadly, the allies did the same thing to the Germans post war - pulping (rather than burning, to avoid accusations of Nazi-style censorship) masses of books, and broadly destroying any works of art and culture that looked a bit suspicious - see, for example, Directive No. 30, "Liquidation of German Military and Nazi Memorials and Museums." 35,000 separate books, including over a decade of textbooks, were listed for destruction, and many others were looted or accidentally destroyed.
Note 2: Look up the "Butt Report" (yes that's its actual name) if you're interested. Essentially, in 1941, only 1 in 4 British planes managed to bomb within 5 miles of their targets in Germany, with worse stats the more important the target.