Product Details

• Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Glenn Close, Anne Frank, Edith Frank, Margot Frank
• Directors: Jon Blair
• Writers: Anne Frank, Jon Blair
• Producers: Jon Blair
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: April 22, 1997
• Run Time: 122 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304197632
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,259 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Anne Frank has not been forgotten. More than 25 million copies of her diary--which has been turned into a play and a movie--have been sold. This intense, richly detailed documentary paints a broad portrait of Anne. Documentaries are a dime a dozen, but few stories are as truly powerful, as sincerely moving and poignant as Anne's. Director Jon Blair does a phenomenal job with this carefully detailed, thoughtful, emotional film (his previous documentary on Oskar Schindler so captivated Steven Spielberg that he was inspired to make Schindler's List). Blair unearths a 1980 interview with the only surviving member of the Frank family, Anne's father, Otto, who offers an unpublished portion of her diary. Blair also discovers previously unseen footage of her watching a 1941 wedding, the only known film of Anne to exist; it's a brief, but breathtaking image of a girl who inspired the world. Blair also interviews Peter Pepper, who hid with the Franks, and Hanneli Goslar, who befriended Anne and her sister at camp and depicts the Frank girls' last days. The most potent interview, though, is with Miep Gies, Otto's employee who risked her life to help the Franks. Gies, modest and not completely comfortable on camera, is so likable that she seems to embody Anne's touching words, spoken amidst the horror of their lives: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." Kenneth Branagh narrates and Glenn Close reads Anne's diary excerpts. --N.F. Mendoza

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good At Heart, and In Our Hearts Forever, March 13, 2004

By 

James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anne Frank Remembered (DVD)

Young, rascally Anne Frank, if not for the extraordinary circumstances of her life, may have grown up to be a writer, a movie star, or any of the other thousand things she dreamed and fantasized about, as any adolescent girl does. Instead, she has become an icon, a symbol of hope, and an inspiration to millions of people around the world who have suffered under the hands of despotism and fear. This DVD serves as a documentary, and tribute, to this amazing girls life.

Directed by Jon Blair, who previously produced a documentary on the life of Oskar Schindler, brings his skills and expertise to bringing to life the life of Anne and her family as they first flee Germany to set up her home in Amsterdam, and then, to flee into hiding once German invades the Netherlands. As told through the eyes of her childhood friends, Anne is precocious, impish and fun. Interviews with Lies Gosslar and others provide first hand accounts about her, and make her real and authentic, not grandios or distorted, as the tendency may be for someone as famous as Anne. This documentary also doesn't shy away from Anne's burgeoning sexuality and her feelings about her adolscence, which provides a more complete picture of this girl.

The documentary moves into the Frank family needing to hide from the Nazis in their Secret Annex, and we meet the impressive Miep Gies, who sustained the people living there for two years. The footage of Miep in the Annex itself was astounding, and her testimony honest and compelling. A scene in which the son of Fritz Pfeffer, the Jewish dentist who also hid in the Secret Annex, meets Miep in Annex itself reduced me to tears in an instant; kudos to Blair for making this reunion happen and capture it on film. Amazing cinema.

What I appreciated most about this documentary occurs after everyone in captured from the Annex and forced into the hands of the Nazis. Blair painstakingly recounts the final months of the Franks lives, which in past documentaries seems to be rushed over. Blair brings Jewish survivors who knew the Franks back to the camps they were imprisoned in, and shared their experiences. The effect is chilling, and allows us to truly understand the last months of Anne's life more than I ever have before. He brings back Lies to talk about being with Anne during her last few days; incredible.

Also amazing, Blair digging up a very brief movie clip of Anne herself, leaning out the window watching a wedding happen on her street. The twelve year old girl becomes even more alive as we see her, hair blowing in the wind, looking up and behind her, not knowing what her fate will be in just a few years.

Anne Frank so longed to be known around the world, dreaming of becoming a famous writer, and even began to prepare her diary for publication after the war. While she never lived to see that occur, her legacy and gift to the world, through her inspirational words, remains with us today. And this documentary serves as an excellent tribute to her short, short life.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DESERVES 1,000 STARS!, June 15, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Anne Frank Remembered [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Let me start out by saying that this is the best documentary I've ever seen. I now know why it won an Academy award. This movie shows you everything you'd ever need to know about Anne Frank. It tells the story the occupants of the annex from when they all met and from the day they died. Glen Close reads excerpts for the diary, and there are many interviews of people who knew Anne, her sister Margot, and her parents. I think the best part was the last part. It starts out by saying there was a wedding on the Merwiederplein (Anne's apartment building before she went into hiding). The person who is filming it first shows the wedding on the ground then the overlookers looking at the wedding from their windows. He scrolls up and there is Anne Frank, herself. It is a brief moment but it is breathtaking. This is the only moving footage of her that they know of. I would also recommend viewing this tape with the Anne Frank House CD-rom... I hope you enjoy this movie as much as I do!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As Good A Biographical Documentary As You Will Ever See, December 27, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Anne Frank Remembered [VHS] (VHS Tape)

After having visited the Annne Frank House last month in Amsterdam I was anxious to learn more about her brief life and times. I bought this video recently and have seen it over an over many times. Anne comes alive through the interviews with Miep Gies, Hannah Goslar and her father Otto. Rather then the canonized person we tend to view her as she is in many ways a typical early adolescent; petulant, self centered, critical, sweet, intelligent and gentle - a person with strong likes and dislikes. The most moving part of the documentary was a first time meeting between the son of "Alfred Dussel" (in reality Dussel was Fritz Pfeffer - the Dentist who shared a room with Anne) whose name was Peter Pepper. It really brought tears to my eyes and then we are told that two months after the meeting he died of cancer. Also at the very end of the documentary is a home movie made of a wedding in Amsterdam in 1941 where the cameraman looks up and we see Anne Frank watching the wedding party - it is the only known moving image of her.