4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lacks credibility, June 29, 2009
"Hearts of War" was originally titled "The Poet" [the European release], and is a Holocaust/WW II drama. The movie begins in 1939 as the Germans invade and occupy Poland. Rachel [Nina Dobrev] is a rabbi's daughter who gets lost in a snowstorm and is rescued by an undercover German officer, Oscar Koenig [Jonathan Scarfe]. The next morning, Rachel awakes to see the smitten Oscar and they both make love. This is the beginning of a series of plot implausibilities. Even if one were to take into account that both Rachel and Oscar genuinely fell in love, I think the story would have had more credibility if they had at least spent a bit more time getting to know each other. I mean, Rachel is an orthodox rabbi's daughter and betrothed to someone else! I do not think it was common for a girl of such upbringing to fling convention to the winds and have sex with a virtual, albeit handsome stranger.
That aside, the movie just does not flow well - there are a few different story arcs that run through the movie, but are not fused seamlessly. Rachel ends up getting separated from Oscar, finds herself pregnant, and later agrees to marry selfless Bernard, a Jewish young man who is hopelessly in love with Rachel. The pair have to navigate a treacherous and uncertain path and fight against the odds to stay alive. Oscar meanwhile, pines away for his love whilst under pressure from his peers and his domineering father to act like a 'good German soldier'. His heart just isn't in fighting, preferring to write 'deep' poems instead. There are some notable names in this movie that are totally wasted - Daryl Hannah plays Oscar's sympathetic mother, who hardly bats an eyelid when Oscar proclaims he loves a Jewish girl. Roy Scheider appears briefly as a rabbi who marries Rachel and Bernard.
The movie ultimately suffers from a lack of credibility - not just in the storyline such as the unconvincing romance but also in the action sequences which come off as lame and poorly executed. There's also a story arc later on in the movie where Rachel masquerades as Christina, a singer who sleeps with German officers to survive. I'm sorry, perhaps such stories did occur during the war, but at this point, I was beyond caring what happened to anyone in the movie.
I've watched many Holocaust dramas and there are some really stellar productions out there. "Hearts of War" isn't one of them. Here are some Holocaust dramas that I've found riveting and credibly done:
Fateless - a young boy's horrific Holocaust experience in the camps
Out of the Ashes - a doctor's experiences in Auschwitz return to haunt her after the war
The Devil's Arithmetic - based on a novel, this centers on a young Jewish girl (played by Kirsten Dunst) who goes back in time to the period of the Holocaust
Black Book - action-based Holocaust drama
Escape From Sobibor - centers on Russian POWs and Jewish prisoners escaping from the Sobibor camp during the Holocaust (based on true events)
Gloomy Sunday - tragic romance set during the Holocaust in Hungary
Sunshine - three generations of Jews from the same family and their experiences during the Holocaust
War and Remembrance: The Complete Epic Mini-Series - lengthy mini-series on WW II, with a compelling portrayal of the Holocaust that is harrowing to watch
Holocaust - mini-series on the experiences of members of a Jewish family during the Holocaust. Very graphic and truly tragic.
Amen - the Holocaust from the POV of a German chemist/Nazi officer and a Catholic priest
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Heartbreaking and Beautiful!!!!, September 7, 2009
Having always been attracted to the concept of forbidden love, the idea of a German soldier falling in love with a Jewish girl during the WWII era was too good to pass up when I saw it at the video store.
The story was passionate and entrathalling... I could not turn away despite the numerous pitfalls that occur to the lead actors. Both Oskar and Rachel start off in the story as naive and romantic people, whose love is disrupted by the cruelties of the war and the expectations of Oskar by his general father. As the story progresses, the harsh realities of war force these two to grow up and do unthinkable things. Oskar becomes his father's son and furthers the German cause, learning to kill in the blink of an eye. Rachel, on the other hand, is forced to become a prostitute for German soldiers in order to feed and clothe her baby. Bernard, her husband, has to accept it all because he loves Rachel and the baby she had with Oskar.
Survival becomes the key element of this story, even more than the love between Oskar and Rachel. Some reviewers were upset by the lack of realism in the story, but this is what war is all about. People suffering and doing things they never would have though themselves capable of doing. The story serves to illustrate the inhumanity of wars, how destructive and evil they are.
In the end, Oskar and Rachel find each other again, never having lost they felt for one another. The fact that they still had the capacity to love after all they had been through was pretty miraculous. A heartwrenching story with a happy ending, a truly wonderful movie!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Agreed with z_hayes here., December 28, 2010
This review is from: Hearts of War (Amazon Instant Video)
Damsel in distress wakes up and falls instantly in love with a ~sensitive~, starry eyed poetic german solder and covets her in his love shack cabin. Ugh. He ousts her the very next day on a white horse in a bright red cape (target practice, anyone?) The whole thing comes across like an airy fairy harlequin romance-soap opera which rather puts to shame that is supposed to be grounded in gritty history. Also, the nazi suddenly shaking the love child was such a clumsy soapy plot device. I was LOL on that one. It really came across like the director was preparing to be rid of two obstacles to bring the love birds together as one. The clutzy destination to an 'end' could not have come soon enough. I could go on and on with the immaturity and lack of depth but I'd rather not waste anymore time on this..
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