The Last Days

Director: James Moll James Moll

Overview

"The powerful documentary The Last Days comes to DVD with both a widescreen transfer and a standard full-frame transfer. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Stereo. Supplemental materials include outtakes of additional footage, an introduction to the Shoah Foundation featuring Steven Spielberg, and a still photo gallery of the survivors of the concentration camps. This is a powerful release that should be worthwhile to anybody with an interest in the subject matter. This disc may be useful for teachers in the classroom setting."

Product Details

Release Date:	11/05/2002
UPC:	0025192279621
Original Release:	1998
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:27:00

Special Features

Closed Caption;Steven Spielberg introduction to the Shoah Foundation; Outtakes and behind the scenes footage; Survivor's photo gallery; Production photo gallery; Theatrical trailer; Widescreen and full screen formats; English 2.0; English closed captioned

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Nathan Wang	Composer
Hans Zimmer	Composer

Technical Credits

James Moll	Director
June Beallor	Producer
Ken Lipper	Producer
Steven Spielberg	Executive Producer
Tim Cooney	Sound Mixer

Editorial Reviews

Here is a film that offers further proof of the madness of the Final Solution. At a time when the Nazis might have tried propping up their sagging fortunes on the war front, they devoted precious resources toward deporting and exterminating Hungarian Jews. Thus, the five people whose stories are told here, all of them now living in the United States (and one, Tom Lantos, a long-serving Congressman), begin with disbelief. They had heard of the atrocities visited by the Nazis on other countries in Europe, but they never thought it would happen to them. Once the German army invaded in March 1944 that disbelief quickly turned to terror ("You were a hunted animal 24 hours a day," Lantos says) and finally to sorrow over so many lives lost and so much culture destroyed. The film is more than just storytelling and vintage clips of Jews being rounded up; each survivor revisits the old country with a child or grandchildren, to walk the old neighborhoods and among the ruins of the death camps where four of them were imprisoned. (Lantos remained in Budapest for the duration of the war.) Among the most painful memories stirred up by these trips is how neighbors turned so quickly against their Jewish friends.