The movie was set during world war II, the biggest war in history, involving over 30 countries. The war went on for 6 long years, from 1949 to 1945 (“World War II”, 2009). The film is based on a novel by Markus Zusak, who is of German and Austrian descent, so he chose the subject matter to share the stories his parents told him about growing up during the war in Austria and Germany (Hudson, 2010). The movie was released in 2013 and received a rating of 7.6/10 on IMDb.
The movie showed a variety of social classes, like the proletariats/ the working class and lower class/ the Jews and the effects of war can be seen throughout the film. The film revolves around the life of a young girl named Liesel Meminger, the movie began with Liesel being adopted by Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel was illiterate yet she always carried around a book. One evening, a young man came to their house seeking help, he was a Jew named Max. Sometime after Liesel had established an acquaintance with the mayor’s wife, who saw her steal the book during the parade and she allowed Liesel to read books in her library but then Liesel stopped visiting her library and instead she sneaked into the mayor’s house to steal the books.
Winter came and the basement where Max was staying grew colder and Max becomes ill. Soon after Max was starting to get better and he decided to leave the Hubermann’s residence. A few months after, a bomb was dropped on heaven street and Liesel was the only one who survived since she fell asleep in the basement while writing her book. The film conveys the hierarchical order in Germany during World War II and the economic status of the common men and the working individuals/ the proletariats in their society. This was shown in the movie through the Hubermann’s since they are a part of the working individuals/ the proletariats in their society.
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Warfare has been shown to affect physical and human capital thresholds of individuals and households through killings, injury, robbery, and overall destruction associated with fighting that leads to the displacement of individuals and families (Justino, 2012). Poverty can be seen even from the first scene of the movie, wherein Liesel is seen inside a black vehicle as she meets her foster parents, Hans and Rosa.
They both peeked inside the car and after Rosa only saw Liesel she asked why there was only one child in the vehicle when the government had promised them two children with two allowances. This shows how severe poverty was that the couple had no choice but to go on the foster care system wherein they take care of a child in exchange for a stipend from the government. The lack of education can also be seen when Liesel went to school together with Rudy and she was asked to introduce herself in class and to write her name on the board since she was illiterate all she wrote on the board was xxx. And we can point out that her illiteracy was due to poverty because Liesel’s eagerness to read can be seen from her always carrying around a book that she had picked up during her little brother’s funeral.
During the reign of Adolf Hitler, the Jews living in Germany and Austria have been deemed the lower class and were discriminated against and murdered. In the movie, we can see Max Vandenburg a Jew who went to the Hubermann’s residence to seek refuge from the Nazi’s. We can also see Jews being thrown out of houses and captured just because they were Jews. There was no explanation offered, the fact that they were Jews made them become targets of the Nazis. The lower class/ the Jews were sent to concentration camps where their freedom and life were taken from them. There was a scene when Rosa asked Liesel to bring the finished laundry to the mayor’s house and she was astonished by the size and the grandeur of the mayor’s home.
When she got inside the house, Ilsa the mayor’s wife brought Liesel inside her library since she had seen Liesel steal a book during the parade and told her that she can read them anytime. This shows a vast difference between their social classes wherein one can be seen struggling with money while the other can be seen with more than enough money to spend. Starvation was even mentioned in the movie when Rudy caught Liesel “borrowing” books from the mayor’s house. Rudy asked her if she was nuts stealing books when they were already starving and asked her if she even thought about looking for food in the kitchen.
This shows that even when the proletariats are struggling to eat the upper class or the high-ranking officials of their town still did not have to worry about food or money like the middle- and lower-class members of the society. The film also shows aspects of feminism like when Liesel had beaten Franz Deutscher in a fight when he bullied her for being illiterate. Liesel showed her bravery and strength for fighting someone of the opposite gender who is much larger than her and even winning the fight, it shows that women can protect and defend themselves from injustice.
The Book Thief was able to convey the different effects of war in a society e.g. poverty and death. The characters went through many trials and shared different emotions such as fear and grief. Liesel, the heroine of the film continuously showed bravery and strength for not giving up no matter how hard things had gotten and we all shared the feelings of Liesel from joy and fear to grief. The film truly touches the hearts of the people who watch it especially those who were affected by the war and the reign of Adolf Hitler in general.
The film was able to bring light into one of the darkest times in history and also educate people about one of the greatest historical events that happened in the 1900s.
