The Specialist(Ein Spezialist)

Name: The Specialist
Genre: Documentary

Israel, France, Germany · 1999
2h 8m
Director Eyal Sivan
Starring Adolf Eichmann
Genre Documentary

This film, inspired by Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem, is drawn from raw footage of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem in 1961. It shows the appalling ordinariness of a Nazi criminal, and the issues of obedience and responsibility in wartime.

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What are critics saying?

100

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

An astonishing human, political, and historical document.

New York Post by Hannah Brown

It's a worthwhile film both for history buffs and people who are still learning.

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

An austere and fascinating documentary.

New York Daily News by Jack Mathews

The Specialist allows Eichmann to convict himself, not of complicity in the Holocaust -- to that he pleads guilty, by reason of nationalism -- but as a man unfazed by his own inhumanity.

Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum

What's most conspicuously missing is the kind of background information needed to assess many of Eichmann's statements.

TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

Presents the salient points of this troubling case with gripping concision.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

This lone, fallen Nazi's obsessive distance from his actions is enough to give The Specialist a lingering chill.