The Devils Arithmetic

This film is about a girl Hannah Stern. She is a pampered Jewish girl who doesnt bother or care about what happened in the Holocaust in 1941, till one night she was transported back into her families tradgic past. As World War Two builds with rage, she is imprisoned in a Nazi comncentration camp with her future Aunt, Rivkah. They struggle as watching the pain of many women and children rise, surviving with little food, a shocking environment and forced to work to their fullest extent. Hannah soon comes to know that Rivkah is her aunt Eva back in the future and starts to understand and appreciate the Jewish customs that her family had endured.

I thought that it was very interesting at what prossess they had to go through when they got brought into a concentration camp. For example getting their hair cut off, having numbers tattooed on their arms, the clothes they wear and how they have to work very hard etc. I also liked how it flowed from one event to another and there were eye catching parts that made you keep watching, like when the boys were hung, i thought it was really sad.

At the start of this movie I think that it could have been explained more about why she had to open that door, and what happens when the door is opened, how it effects everybody else. Another thing that I thought was a put down for this film was in the dark parts, the lights shone really quickly upon their faces, for example when they were in the carts/carriges being taken to the camp. So that we couldn’t actually identify who the character was properly.

I think that the characters were well played and I felt there sorrow when they were sad and their happiness when they were happy. Hannah is a very caring and gentle yet determined character who seemed to keep changing and becoming more aware of whats happening in the world today as the film progressed. The character which I disliked, would be ofcourse the Nazi soldiers who were cruel and nasty to all the Jews that were trembling with fear, whether they were going to die or not.