MIM Notes No. 199	 December 1, 1999

MOVIE REVIEW

Jakob the Liar points to communist credit for fascist defeat
Columbia Pictures 
Directed by Peter Kassovitz 
1999

The film takes place in Nazi-occupied Poland inside a Jewish ghetto. 
Surrounded by barbed fences and armed guards, Nazis forbid any news from 
outside the ghetto.

While Nazis interrogate Jakob, he overhears a news broadcast that the 
Soviet army is a few hundred miles away and winning battles against the 
fascists. After he repeats the news, the ghetto becomes convinced that 
Jakob has a radio. The others want to hear the latest news from the 
front.

Jakob then considers whether to tell the truth about the radio. Amid the 
hopelessness and suffering, Jews had been committing suicide daily. 
Jakob would encourage hope by lying; he would face the punishment of 
death if Nazis thought he owned a radio.

A doctor in the ghetto discovers the truth. But he encourages Jakob to 
continue lying because the hope of communists invading Poland had helped 
increase determination. All suicides had stopped and the people 
organized a resistance movement.

Jakob the Liar offers a progressive analysis of the human potential to 
work together in the face of repression. Previously fighting for 
individual survival, the people's hope of the communist victory drove 
them to help others in the ghetto instead of acting selfishly.

The movie does not openly distinguish between communist forces led by 
Stalin and the other allied forces fighting the fascists. But it alludes 
to the fact that it was only the communists fighting fascism on the 
Polish front. Through the early years, the imperialists hoped that the 
fascists and the communists would destroy each other and leave the land 
and resources for the imperialists to take. Imperialists only entered 
WWII at the very end, when the defeat of fascism was assured. At that 
point, the imperialists hoped to split the spoils of war and contain the 
growing strength of the communists.

Jakob the Liar contrasts the despair of Nazi deathcamps with the hope 
offered by the Communist military. This is an important addition to 
modern Amerikan culture where the people have all but forgotten that it 
was the communists, led by Stalin, who defeated Hitler and saved the 
millions of lives.