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Bookmark this pageJakob the Liar (1999)
Director: Peter Kassovitz
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
After Roberto Benigni in the camps, Robin Williams in the ghetto (this was actually shot before Life Is Beautiful). Radios and newspapers are banned in the Jewish quarter of an unnamed, Nazi-held Polish city, which places a real premium on reports Jakob (Williams) overhears from a German army broadcast when coincidence finds him inside their barracks. No one believes that he was able to talk his way out again, so Jakob must surely have an illicit radio himself. Realising the morale boosting effect of his revelations, he starts spinning out a few more creative untruths. Broadly, the central conceit is similar to Life Is Beautiful, that when the world becomes too awful you simply invent your own. Benigni's dubious airbrushing is largely avoided, but Kassovitz's film is still a contrived affair, since the misunderstanding which sets the plot rolling is tiresomely stretched out in order to draw something positive from harrowing historical fact. Moreover, face set in that characteristically sincere grimace, Williams gets to bond with an orphaned girl and provide knockabout fun with a faked Churchill radio address.Author: TJ
User reviews of this film
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- Help, I've been informed said...
- Posted on Jan 24 2012 06:07 Help, I've been informed and I can't boceme ignorant.
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- If time is money you've m said...
- Posted on Jan 21 2012 15:42 If time is money you've made me a wleatiher woman.
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- Edmond Dantes said...
- Posted on Sep 13 2010 00:05 I believe that this film shows a slice of life as it was at that particular time in that particular place. What more can one want from a film?
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Cast & crew
Director: Peter Kassovitz
Producer: Marsha Garces Williams, Steven Haft
Cast: Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Hannah Taylor Gordon, Michael Jeter, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Liev Schreiber, Nina Siemaszko, Mathieu Kassovitz full cast
Duration: 120 mins
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