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Just what I expected

As Good As It Gets

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The movie starts with a violin and scenes of the Jewish ghetto. Jakob is one of many Jews in a German-controlled, Polish ghetto. While walking home one night he is sent by a guard to headquarters. There he hears a brief broadcast that Russian troops are doing well against the Germans. The next day, in a desperate attempt to save his friend from committing a rash act and stealing potatoes, he tells him of the Russian advance. He twists the story and it soon is believed that he possess a radio. In order to protect his exaggeration, he continues to tell more and more lies by pretending he hears them on the radio. His lies have a huge impact on camp, but he eventually needs to tell the truth to his friend Kowalski, who kills himself out of despair for living another day in the ghetto. The Jakob's lie remains largely undiscovered, his street is eventually deported to their presumed death.At the beginning of watching the movie I was quite sick of seeing another German movie about WW2. However this movie was amazing. I like how it toys with the perception of truth. Plenty of truths are told that are harmful, and lies are told that are good. Furthermore, truth is merely the acceptance of truth and is useful in so far as it accomplishes an act. Though Jakob may never had possessed a radio, his initial statements were disbelieved. The same way a cloud is out of water, though it is really out of tiny drops of frozen water. Though the obvious interpretation is that life in the ghetto was terrible, and that Jakob's lives were pure hearted, it's also a statement on underlying scientific notions that we cannot legitimately achieve through personal work what we can do together. That notion is very clear for an East German movie. I enjoyed the way the film cut to flashbacks to explain who characters were. It's a short, concise and brilliant method of exposition. The relationships were very well-developed. Rosa and Mischa's courtship was handled well. Although it's obviously sincere, no reasonable parent would approve of such a love in the ghetto. Though abuses are shown, such as when Herschel Schtamm is killed after investigating a boxcar. Much of the movie focuses on the psychological damage forced by isolation, poverty, and a general racism. The movie knows that abuses are known, it's the stories of relationships that aren't as things like letters and radio were banned. For example, Uncle Jakob's care for his niece, and the niece herself, show a compassion. The explanation of his lamp helps to put emphasis on the love of families that was destroyed, frankly by any organized government and especially that of the 3rd Reich.

The role of Jacob is that he is a Jewish man who lives in Poland at the time of the Nazi-rule. He falsely tells a coworker about a radio he owns and he tells him good news about the Russian Army getting closer and closer everyday. This lie spreads quickly thru the Jewish ghetto and immediately all coworkers ask Jacob daily about news. In desperation Jacob makes up good news and spreads them around the ghetto. As the movie moves along it shows violence and prosecution of the Jewish people. At the end of the movie the ghetto including Jacob leave their home town and head in unknown direction. Jacob lied about the radio and spread good news to keep hope and live in his community. He did not reach his goal because his predictions of freedom of Jews never occurred.Bernandin Mali

Jacob the LiarI liked this movie, and I think it had good lessons to learn from. I liked Lena's character. She was completely innocent throughout the entire movie, and I felt that she showed not everyone had lost hope during the time. Even at the end, she was excited that they were going away, and she had no clue where. She was just being a kid, and going anywhere is exciting when you are young. Jacob starting telling stories about the Russians and other things he knew about the war. The reality was that he knew nothing more than anyone else. In a way, it did help the people's spirits though. But in the end, everyone was unhappy because their optimism was crushed with the sign that said everyone was to gather together with less than 5 kilos in luggage so they could `go away'.I think my favorite scene was when the old man thought he heard voices in the freight car. While I was watching the movie, I thought he was crazy and apparently so did everyone else. They all thought he was just hearing things that weren't there. The reality was that there was someone in the car, but they never showed who and a guard shot the old man before he could tell anyone. The scene sparked my curiosity on who it was exactly in the car and why that person was being held in there, or if they were being held in the at all.The whole radio lie caused a lot of problems in the movie, and that's why I said above that there were some good lessons to be learned in the movie. One lie sparked another for him, and that got him in deeper into his stories until so many people were asking about the radio that he just couldn't make anything else up and he finally told his friend. Surprisingly enough, the friend took the news very well. In a way, it almost seemed like he was expecting it all along. The movie shows that lying for whatever cause is never a good cause no matter how much you think it may help the situation. The lies turned everyone against him in the end, and they all ended up the same way anyhow unfortunately. Although this wasn't my favorite movie in class so far, I did enjoy watching it, and it kept my attention throughout the story.

One of the legacies of the late GDR (East Germany) is a treasure-trove of cultural productions, much of which has been inaccessible to us. An exception is the 1974 DEFA (GDR successor to pre-1945 Ufa Film Studio) production "Jacob the Liar", which enjoyed a brief exposure in the US in the late '70s, even being nominated for an Academy Award. If you missed it, this is your chance to have it, beautifully transferred to DVD (also another justification for splurging on a DVD player, if you haven't already). Although it can be viewed without, the subtitles (your choice of language)are well-worded and legible."Jacob" centers on a man inadvertently finding himself a focus of hope among the doomed in a Polish ghetto. Circumstances have him reluctantly pretending to possess a forbidden radio, which leads to dramatic (and comedic) situations, and even raises moral questions and insights about truth and responsibility in such an adverse context. Billed as a tragic comedy, the acting and pacing of the story are equal to the serious nature of the subject.Director Frank Beyer's "Jacob" should not be confused with the 1999 Hollywood remake starring the talented (but often glib and facetious) Robin Williams. This Columbia distribution is a sort of roadrunner-cartoon version trying to be profound. It has the frantic pacing and excessive gratuitous violence evidently presumed necessary to put it over. If you must have a Holocaust-era drama that can bear watching more than once, get the real McCoy.