Out of the Ashes (2003)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Let's be realistic.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

For anyone without the patience to navigate this site, who assumes Christine Lahti won the 2003 Miniseries Lead Actress Emmy by acclamation (based on predictions made back then): Not only was Lahti overlooked for her OUT OF THE ASHES role as Holocaust abortionist Dr. Gisella Perl, but she could not take even the Showtime network bragging rights (Maggie Smith won over all for MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA, and Showtime's Jessica Lange at least made the final five for her title role in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE).Secondly, unlike such concentration camps as Bergen Belsen in countries such as Germany (19 total), Auschwitz was one of five EXTERMINATION camps (all in Poland). Therefore, 99% of internees there died (pretty much everyone except the last group brought in, and Gisella Perl--a collective fate she well knew). Dr. Perl's moral ambivalence involved deciding for 1000 women it would be better for Dr. Perl to deliver and smother their newborns, with the moms being painfully gassed to death within a week, rather than to let actual Nazi SS officers shoot the moms and babies in the head. Whether being forced to do more of their own dirty work--instead of being assisted by Dr. Perl and the more famously documented male prisoner oven details (one of which bucked "groupthink," fought back, and killed many SS guards)--whether, again, such a stubbornly non-collaborative response to pure evil would have driven the SS too berserk to kill as many as they did (or had Hitler turned them into nonhuman orcs, capable of endless killing?), God only knows. Far from stereotyping the "bad guys," director Joseph Sargent takes Nazis=bad for a given, and presents the three immigration officers in New York City as Dr. Perl's real opponents (and not mere "straw men," as evidenced when one of the trio brings Dr. Perl up short by telling her of the son HE lost on D-Day). Certainly some of the niceties presented (Gisella's only infanticide shown here is performed outside of the new mom's view, and her post-Auschwitz baby delivery tally is given as exactly twice her death camp "full-birth" abortion toll) seem too pat.Thirdly, the DVD extras include amazingly comprehensive filmographies for Christine Lahti, Beau Bridges, Richard Crenna, and Bruce Davison, as well as a helpful map locating all 24 SS concentration and death camps. Also insightful are the cast interviews, "The Choices of Dr. Gisella Perl" among them.

I agree wholeheartedly with George Parker. No one would deny that dreadful things happened in Auschwtiz but AS A MOVIE this SUCKS. Gisella Perl left very vivid descriptions of the horrors endured which should have been the central theme.Instead we had cheap sets, lousy cinematography, inaccurate depictions (re uniforms, characters etc) and melodramatic overacting which all added up up to one disappointing MOVIE. PLAYING FOR TIME, THE GREY ZONE, ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR & TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT all do better justice to the topic. Shame on the the Director, Jospeh Sargeant who also did PLAYING FOR TIME but seemed unable to reach the same heights this time round. Bringing in some "big" names, Richard Crenna, Beau Bridges etc hoping to, what, lend some class to the movie or to the lame overacting ???!! As Homer Simpson would put it ...... BORING !!!!!!

Jessica Beitchman as Marta Weiss was the most captivating character of this piece. Considering the company she's keeping in the movie (Christine Lahti, Beau Bridges, Richard Crenna) that is an incredible accomplishment. The movie was a touching yet horrifying account of a female Doctor in a WW II concentration camp. In it, Doctor Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti) helps Marta Weiss (Jessica Beitchman) while imprisoned together in Auschwitz and the two are reunited once again in America. When the American authorities suspect the good Doctor of voluntarily participating in experiments conducted by the "Angel of Death" Dr Josef Minghela, Perl must now rely on the testimony provided by young Marta Weiss to help free her in the land she came to be free in, America. It is the extraordinary tale of the holocaust survivors that came to the USA after enduring the unimaginable while trapped in Nazi occupied Europe in the 1940's.

The first 20 minutes was slow and I thought this was going no where. But, then when we start to see flashbacks of the concentration camps and what Perl saw and endured there; it gets really good. Christine Lahti is really good and will surely be nominated for an Emmy. I mean, it was awful how the interview panel tries to make Dr. Perl look bad because of the things she had to do in order to survive her imprisonment. And the film does have those shocking Nazi moments, like shootings in the head, killing pregnant women, and experiments on babies.FINAL VERDICT: This was a good movie about a Jewish Dr. who struggles with the moral choices she must make to survive Nazi imprisonment. Definitely catch this if you have Showtime.