A fascinating history lesson about a generally-overshadowed aspect of the Second World War.
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09/22/08
The Rape Of Europa (2007)
79 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 38
Fresh: 30
Rotten:8
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
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 lovers worked to save as many pieces as... [More]
Director: Bonni Cohen, Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham
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Reviews for The Rape Of Europa
That Hitler was mad is well known. That he was mad about art, not so well.
08/15/08
Top Critic 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
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
Top Critic
The 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
It's a compelling journey into a soul-chilling past that might not be fully sorted out for generations to come.
05/02/08
Its lack of both style and focus keeps it from being a success as a feature film.
04/24/08
The Rape of Europa presents iconic images that viewers who aren't schooled in European art will recognize. That's a good way to connect with the film and understand the enormity of the pillage by Hitler and his cronies.
04/11/08
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
Narrated by Joan Allen, the film is a remarkably comprehensive look at the cultural destruction that accompanied the slaughter.
03/28/08
It's long for a documentary, almost two hours, but it has a big story to tell.
03/06/08
Top Critic This is a vast subject, ideally suited to a series of films. It's at its most moving when focusing on the small stories of individual artworks taken from their owners and restored to the families decades later.
02/08/08
(T)his dense, dynamic documentary... takes on the high drama and difficult moral quandaries of Adolf Hitler's campaign to plunder the great artworks of Europe...
02/08/08
As thorough as the movie is, it could easily devote another hour to cases like this.
02/01/08
Top Critic There is a heart-rending feeling to this documentary, in part due to its sense of irretrievable loss.
01/25/08
Top Critic Filmmakers Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, and Nicole Newnham do a superb job of telling this neglected story in vivid detail.
01/11/08
Top Critic Renders one of the most arresting untold stories of World War II into something quite unaccountably boring.
01/07/08
Top Critic This one has focus trouble, canvassing too many countries, too many issues, and the filmmaking is on the ordinary side.
01/03/08
Top CriticLatest News for The Rape Of Europa
January 11, 2008:
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November 20, 2007:
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