Adam Resurrected [Blu-ray]

Derek Jacobi, William Defoe, true actors of the highest caliber. Until now I did not know Jeff Goldblum had such a depth of talent. There have been so many holocaust movies, and rightly so. The approach in this movie is truly different, and centers around a man, finding himself, in an insane asylum. Perhaps that is the search we are all engaged in.

Urban legend: a tourist walking through the Louvre turned to a guard and remarked: "These paintings don't seem to be so special!" The guard replied: "Madam, the quality of these paintings is not in question. The quality of your opinion is."Ah. There's the rub. Here we are, `rating' a work of art. What do we rate it for? Its emotional impact? The unfolding of a plot line? The pacing? The acting? Fine. Those things can count. But there isn't sadly, a single review on this page which wrestles with this film. This troubles me for many reasons.Let's just ask: why would a man who graduated from the premier Dutch Reformed college in America make a move about the Holocaust? To upstage Spielberg? Give me a break. Here is man who understands that Hitler's death camps are the death knell to any rationalized belief in the God of Mount Sinai. Jew, Christian, and Muslin alike have failed to grapple with this in a variety of ways.The title of the movie is our first clue. "Resurrected" Resurrection in movie about Jews? The Chutzpah is so deep here, right? Wrong. Adam flatlines while trying to save the boy. I haven't seen a single reference to the thick symbolism in so much of this film. Not a wasted word or camera angle. The scene in the desert where Adam demands that God show himself, to be answered by a flame is the most brilliant restatement of the Moses story I can imagine: to have his tormentor appear out of it, raises the stakes and to have him remove the God of Sinai by tossing the gun into the flames is pure genius.Yes. I get the crack about needing Cliff Notes. A lot of folks will need so much more than the Cliff Notes for this one. American religious and cultural ignorance is of a piece with our studied indifference to the world in which we live now. Our artists are so often reduced to babbling incoherently because our vocabulary is so impoverished. So we just settle for small talk about the emotional impact. Am I feeling the love or not?Adam is the second Adam. The Adam who screams from his cross: "My God, why have you forsaken me?"But if you are culturally (and that includes Biblically) illiterate, then you are blind and sitting at the temple of your soul begging for crusts of bread. I'm hardly claiming that you need to be an Orthodox Jew or a church-going Christian to understand that the suffering of these survivors is riddled through with their loss of faith, that their extreme pain is so much more than mere `survivors guilt'.We can't make movies like this one or even "High Noon" any more. No one `gets them' except on the most superficial of levels. So we get a scattering of reviews, and a work of true genius averages out to what? Three stars?The miracle is that this movie ever saw the silver screen. Pay attention. It may be one of the last of its kind.

Adam Resurrected is a captivating, bizarre, and at times extremely real and disturbing film.While I do not want to spoil much about the film, please be warned that this film is NOT for everyone. The cinematography, editing, and pacing of the film and reflection on the main character Adam Stein (played brilliantly by Jeff Goldblum) make you feel a little bit disoriented and maybe even a little crazy, which is entirely the point of the movie. Some things are shown in the film that might be simply too preposterous or outrageous to believe, but the way the film is shot makes what is happening on screen feel very real.This is the accomplishment of this film: it throws at you such bizarre and preposterous characters and actions, and then takes these actions and grounds them in reality and, most importantly, feeling: you really feel engrossed in the world being presented, and it can sometimes be very disorienting and disturbing to watch.Paul Schrader's direction is spot on, and all the performances are quite good. The pacing and editing is also well-done with beautiful cinematography, although the film has a few editing and pacing quirks here and there where things could have been done better. All in all, though, it's an extremely well-made film.Jeff Goldblum gives a heartbreaking and breathtaking performance, a true crime being committed that he has not been given more recognition for this film.Watch this film if you are in any way a fan of Jeff Goldblum or cinema.

... how this film fell through the cracks. Though it won several awards, the Academy is conspicuously silent here. While I am ignorant of the Academy's inner workings, I am not of politics in general and politics must be what happened with this movie. I cannot imagine any other reason since I have to believe they were left at just as much a loss for words as I was. The silence must have been deafening in that viewing room. Jeff Goldblum's incising intellect, rapid fire analysis of his character's moments of clarity and descents into madness are etched into his face as well. Masterful delivery. I suspect Jeff Goldblum to have that mad scientist aura since he plays that sort of character in most of his films, and he is at his experienced best in this role. Willem DaFoe is very believable as an SS commandant, and frighteningly so. The ease and confidence of his delivery is as good on it's level as Jeff Goldblum's is on his. The supporting cast is just as good on their level.Very well done, very much worth watching, and the movie most likely to haunt your humanity. If you are a thinker, or an understander or have known a survivor of any kind of ethnic holocaust, you will as much feel this film as see it.

Every actor in this film performs at the highest level. The editing is pure art. The screenplay is a miracle. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Sometimes, a film truly touches the soul. Humanizes us. I hope people who truly appreciate fine film-making see this one. Adam Resurrected is not to be missed!

Through pain and suffering human beings should recognize the real value in life: love, compassion, empathy, care. Even a survival of horrific deeds can be accused of terrible things. There is such thing: survival guilt. A lot of Holocaust-survival killed themselves. Why? They couldn't get the Kleins and the Mengeles out of their head. PTSD. I'm afraid there is a lot of Dr. Mengele and Klein is still out there, never except this sentence: "I was obeying orders." Beautiful movie, wonderful job: the actors, the director and the picture. Thank you.

Unfinished symphony. At last, a portrayal of the effects of long-term trauma. It is completely realistic in that respect, a human de-evolving to a canine (animal) state in an all out desperate attempt to prolong it's (his/her) existence. People with no experience (suffering or treating) of the effects of long-term trauma could find this film preposterous or too weird.Spoiler!For me, the film progresses in quite a linear way, the flash-backs filling in the blanks as to how poor Adam HAD to fully embrace his canine persona to survive and finally to be able to cope with the ultimate betrayal (in his eyes) of his wife and daughter. When Adam connects with his perceived betrayal, part of him dies, his canine saviour. I can understand his primary carer introducing the dog-child (if I may call him that with the greatest of respect) in an attempt to save them both. To help the child Adam allows him to fully accept his canine persona, so opening the door to the child's humanity, while in parallel the roots of Adam's canine saviour is revealed. There is more to the film, which I won't go into, as it would take too long.With only 2 hours to work with, the film is an abridged version only. The story needs more work to be complete, especially on a deeper understanding of the main protagonists. For any survivor of long-term trauma, I would think that this film could shed some light within their own inner darkness. In my opinion this is an important piece of work of a much misunderstood subject, that being the effects of severe, long-term trauma.I applaud the insight of the people involved in the production of this unfinished symphony. An easy 5 stars.

I had a very basic idea of what this film would be like and I cannot say how wrong I was.It just goes to show that some great stars will do anything for the cash----sorry but that's how it comes over.I found the film to be silly to the point of boredom and the idea behind it dreadful.To be ordered to act like a dog throughout the stay in a camp,was even by my books,strange.We know some degrading,,unspeakable horrors and humiliations took place and dreadful they were too.But this idea just didn't do it for me at all.I am not a great fan of Jeff Goldlum BUT I am of Derek Jacobi,yet I am somewhat not suprised to find him doing something like this--sometimes he does produce some not-so-good efforts and this is one.Definitely'One Flew Over etc' basis to this film.Sorry--I was bored with a lot of it and so cannot recommend.

I haven't read the novel on which this film is based, but the stories about the length of time it took to make suggests that many in the industry did indeed consider it untranslatable to the screen.Don't get put off, though, by the non-linear structure, the traumatic emotional heart of the film (Holocaust survival) or its undeniable strangeness - this is original, brave, and often beautiful.Jeff Goldblum is great, portraying not just a man who is mad, but who uses these manic episodes as a way of dealing with his profound heartache. This chimes with the 1960s idealism of the institute, reflecting the era's infatuation with new developments in psychiatry.There is a clear resemblance to On Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but these similarities are, in the end, only incidental.None of this is to say this film is perfect, but it earns five stars because of its bravery and ambition. Genuinely an original effort.

Interesting to see the near-perfect distribution of Amazon reviews between "like" and "dislike". It makes me feel better as, despite I tried hard, I could not see the point of this movie. I can only congratulate with Jeff Goldbum for his acting skills that, however, remain pointless in the context.

The DVD arrived quite quickly.The film was a good effort at addressing less talked about subjects, and I appreciated it's kind of 'arty' approach. However, there were moments whan I just thought 'what's going on?' and bits left me a little confused, or in some parts, a little disbelieving.