Its lack of both style and focus keeps it from being a success as a feature film.
Comment
04/24/08
The Rape Of Europa (2007)
79
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:31
Rotten:8
Average Rating:7.2/10
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Synopsis: Joan Allen narrates this documentary that chronicles the plight of Europe's greatest artistic treasures during the Nazi reign. As the Third Reich attempted to destroy the continent's culture, art... [More]
Director: Bonni Cohen, Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham
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Reviews for The Rape Of Europa
Not helping matters are Joan Allen's blanched tones as narrator, or the general flatness of the talking heads.
09/28/07
This one has focus trouble, canvassing too many countries, too many issues, and the filmmaking is on the ordinary side.
01/03/08
Top CriticThe movie doesn't dramatize this crime -- it catalogs it. With deadening monotony.
09/13/07
Top CriticThe directors might have benefited by going smaller %u2014 for instance, focusing on two or three pieces of lost artwork and tracing their history. This art documentary simply isn't artful enough.
05/29/08
The movie's three directors sap the drama out of the story with slow pacing, a dispassionate accumulation of facts and a too-dry narration by Joan Allen.
04/04/08
Renders one of the most arresting untold stories of World War II into something quite unaccountably boring.
01/07/08
The directors (Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham) have their hearts in the right place. But their film is uninspired in style, and Joan Allen's narration is dry.
09/14/07
All in all, an exciting and terrifying new perspective on an era you probably thought you understood.
09/20/07
Top CriticA fascinating account of art's fate during the rise of the Third Reich and the Second World War.
09/13/07
The Rape of Europa boasts a strong narration by Joan Allen as it explores a less familiar aspect of World War II and the legacy left by the Nazis.
06/20/08
Much of the documentary shows in gripping detail the efforts to save Europe's treasures from Hitler's clutches and the ravages of war.
09/17/07
The Rape of Europa is conventionally made, but it doesn't need cinematic sizzle because it's packed with so many fascinating factoids.
05/30/08
The Rape of Europa, an engrossing film based on Lynn Nicholas' 1995 book of the same name, offers a fascinating new perspective on an era that sometimes seems as if it has no more secrets.
05/29/08
Scrupulously researched, jaw-droppingly vast in scope and incredibly detailed.
09/17/07
Europa starts to lose its tight focus and becomes a cinematic cataloguing of events across seven countries. Given the moral imperative at the heart of the movie, however, perhaps more is more.
09/27/07
Top CriticRape of Europa is a history lesson dressed as a measured thriller.
09/27/07
This meticulously rich documentary chronicles the cultural scavenging of the Nazis and the heroic efforts of art patrons and ordinary citizens to hide the treasures.
09/14/07
Top CriticAs thorough as the movie is, it could easily devote another hour to cases like this.
02/01/08
Filmmakers Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, and Nicole Newnham do a superb job of telling this neglected story in vivid detail.
01/11/08
Top CriticLatest News for The Rape Of Europa
January 11, 2008:
Juno, No Country for Old Men Among Writers Guild Award Nominees
If there's one Hollywood awards ceremony that you'd think would be able to go off without a hitch this year, it'd be the Writers Guild Awards -- but you'd be wrong. More...
November 20, 2007:
Fifteen Documentaries Vie for Oscar Consideration
A little over a week after reporting the names of the dozen films being submitted for Oscar consideration in the animated feature film category, Variety has given readers the... More...
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