Jakob the Liar
by Peter Kassovitz
List Price:
Our Price: $4.66
You Save: $5.29 (53%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.59 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Mark Margolis, Mathieu Kassovitz, Michael Jeter, Nina SiemaszkoDirector: Peter Kassovitz
Brand: WILLIAMS,ROBIN
Cinematographer: Elemer Ragalyi
Composer: Ed Shearmur
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.33:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-03-21
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Jakob the Liar
Movie Review: JAKOB the LIAR makes you cry laugh feel despair joy love & hate
Summary: 5 Stars
Not history. A powerful tale of tragedy & a man who helped where he could. Robin Williams gets my applause for portraying this complex character, a serious role, even brutally interrogated. Jakob also tried to lighten the spirits of ghetto imprisoned Jewish friends. To save barber Kowalsky (Bob Balaban) from attempted suicide he says he has a secret radio and gives reports of hope. The news passes throughout the ghetto like fire. Additional fake news lifts morale, provides ghetto hope, changes lives, all while Jakob also performs acts of human kindness and helps friends enrich life in death's face. His fake reports end Jew ghetto suicides.
Jacob hides a girl of 10, Lina (Hannah Taylor-Gordon) while the entire ghetto hears radio rumors. The Jews want more and more news to bolster their faith and inspire hope. All the while, people are being trained out, like Lina's parents, in the tragic events of "The Holocaust." This film perhaps shows what the average man/woman felt, and how they dealt with the unspeakable horror of their time and life. Cast is filled with award winning stars, most noted in the listing material.
View this movie not as another documentary of the WWII times, but of one man's wartime effort to make life something bearable. There is some humor amid the primary story of tragedy. Jakob need to embellish his news gets him caught up in improvisation such as explaining "American tanks have a 'clean' sound." Yes, Jakob's lies were just attempts to life spirits, remove thoughts from the horror, and provide hope.
For the viewer, Jakob does not trivialize the Holocaust, as proved by the ending scenes, which will send your heart's emotions on a whirlwind roller-coaster ride. You will cry, laugh, feel despair then joy, love, hate, and perhaps even become inspired by a group of people who determined to LIVE in the face of death. As realistic as "Holocaust (1978)" the series.
Wonderful sets, costumes and props. Takes you right back to the 1940s Polish ghetto (hopefully never duplicated for real). Rated PG in Canada, but it has some horrific scenes. Maybe not for kids.
Subtitles and CC available. A good special feature, "Making-Of" Featurette, should be watched prior to the main film. DVD side A is Widescreen, B is Full screen.
Summary of Jakob the Liar
After being detained at Gestapo headquarters and overhearing a radio report of a Russian victory, Jacob passes along the good news but has to prove himself.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 1-JUN-2004
Media Type: DVD
Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful aside, milking the Holocaust for laughs is a dangerous game. Even the blackest, most therapeutic humor turns queasy in the shadow of such monstrous evil; it's like dancing on a mass grave. So Jakob the Liar's got a hard road to hoe--its eponymous schlemiel plays out his semi-farcical adventures in the mean streets of the Warsaw Ghetto circa 1944. The skies are always leaden over Jakob's hometown, reflecting the comic climate that pervades this mostly unfortunate adaptation of Jurek Becker's autobiographical book (first filmed in 1975).
Jakob Heym (Robin Williams in overbearingly earnest mode) gets tangled in a string of self-perpetuating lies about a hidden radio, supposedly broadcasting news that the victorious Red Army is nearing. His desperate attempts to convince a clutch of insistently idiosyncratic friends (clichés to a man: Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban, Michael Jeter, Alan Arkin) and obligatory Nazi bad guys that the radio doesn't exist are complicated by the fact that he's stashed a fugitive kid (a dead ringer--sorry!--for Anne Frank) in his attic--and by abundant evidence that lies are the best medicine for the ghetto's skyrocketing suicide rate. Copious unfunny misunderstandings and pratfalls eventuate in this Holocaust rendition of Fiddler on the Roof (you expect Williams to break into song: "If I were a funny man...."). Ultimately, Jakob the Liar loses its way for good in some very ugly violence and a rather nasty final twist: the film's ending might just be rubbing our noses in another feel-good lie. --Kathleen Murphy
Similar DVD Movies
Life is BeautifulBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1999-11-09; DVD
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
DefianceCRAIG,DANIEL; Release date: 2009-06-02; Published: 2009-06-01; DVD
Best price: $2.72
Price in other shops:
Moscow on the HudsonSony; Release date: 2001-11-27; DVD
Best price: $4.42
Price in other shops:
Patch Adams - Collector's EditionUniversal Studios; Release date: 2002-06-11; DVD
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops:
The Boy In The Striped PajamasLGF; Release date: 2011-04-26; DVD
Best price: $10.13
Price in other shops:
Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)UNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2004-03-09; DVD
Best price: $6.88
Price in other shops:
Man of the Year (Widescreen Edition)NBC Universal; Release date: 2007-02-20; Published: 2007-02-01; DVD
Best price: $2.80
Price in other shops:
The Best of TimesLions Gate; Release date: 1999-02-02; DVD
Best price: $1.75
Price in other shops:
The PianistNBC Universal; Release date: 2006-08-22; DVD
Best price: $7.23
Price in other shops:
The Devil's ArithmeticShowtime Entertainment; Release date: 2004-09-21; DVD
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops: