Funferal

Cinema and Life

I’ve just come back from seeing The Pianist – a film that should win lots of Oscars, but won’t. And not only because Polanski is a fugitive. I can’t imagine that a film that accurately portrays the horrors, and of war is going to be very popular just at the moment.
One thing that the film shows very well is that all those trite comparisons (of Saddam Hussein or George Bush) with Hitler and Nazism are just that – trite and offensive (to say nothing of the PETA ads). The systematic and brutal nature of the Nazi campaign was of a different nature.
Having said that, this story which I just came across since coming home did strike a chord. To pull just one quote:

One of those who died was a pregnant woman who refused to leave a home and was buried under the rubble when it was demolished, Palestinian medics said.

There may not be moral equivalence – and I recognise the complexity of the situation in the Middle East – but how can actions like this be defended?