When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

from a group life. from sketches of escape. from a time. or, only, as skin of a baby cry. it is a Shoah page but in special manner. because the innocence and guilty are not Manichean toys. because the subject is science to survive. not only for Jews. it is a film about art. but , in same time, it is testimony of fall. and the real virtue is minimalist stile. a ghetto, a spoiled young German officer, a governor of community, a beautiful woman , a puppeteer and his special puppet. and a theater, rumors of war and need to control situation. it is not Schindler list. because it is better. it is not a picture of a great crime. only story about people in crisis time.it may be a poem. but last scene is more important to be literature. it is a momento. or only mirror. for lost time. for present time.

In 1942, in Vilna, the Nazi annihilate 55,000 Jews and squeeze the 15,000 survivors in a seven blocks ghetto. The twenty-two year old sadistic commander Kittel (Sebastian Hülk) is assigned to administrate the ghetto in the capital of Lithuania, becoming the master of life or death. When he finds the gorgeous Hayyah (Erika Marozsán) sneaking with one kilo of beam stolen from the German army, he sentences her to death; but when he is informed that she was a former successful singer, he decides to activate the old theater and promote shows in the ghetto. The Jew Chief of Police Gens (Heino Ferch) uses the theater and a sewing factory to save as much lives as he can; in his ambiguous position, he kills Jews to save lives of others."Ghetto" is an impressively cruel and depressive movie. The first point that impresses the viewer is certainly the cruelty and sadism of Kittel. Sebastian Hülk has an awesome performance in the role of the despicable Kittel and deserved a nomination to the Oscar. The screenplay does not spare the reality of the lives of the dwellers of this ghetto and their fight to survive in times of war, including the beginning of their resistance. However, it does not show the final destruction of the ghetto after a failed uprising on 01 September 1943 organized by the first Jewish partisan unit in Nazi-occupied Europe (the "Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje" - the United Partisan Organization). The beauty of Erika Marozsán and the dramatic and conflictive position of Gens brilliantly performed by Heino Ferch, are also amazing. The music score gives a touch of class to this great Lithuanian production. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Ghetto"

This movie has apparently not been released in the US, but I found it available on DVD in Beijing, of all places. It takes place during the war in the ghetto in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania and shows the brutality of war, with a Nazi leader forcing Jews to perform as actors, and using the Jewish police to carry out orders. It is somewhat melodramatic with some comedic elements, but overwhelmingly brutal. I don't know is this is based on a true story or fictional. The acting was generally good, with some high and low points. There have been better holocaust films, but as one of the genre, this one is not too bad. The film was in English, but was likely dubbed. Amazingly it was a Lithuanian-German production, which in itself is somewhat ground breaking.

I saw this film when I spent some time in Vilnius. Not long before I head spent some time in the genocide museum in the Lithuanian capital and I was fascinated by there history, especially during WWII. Since this movie was spoken in English, and everyone was talking about it I went to see it in one of the big theaters. It added to the experience to be in the city where the story took place, but regardless, it was very well done, it just seemed to be unsure whether it was a musical, play or war movie. That made it very original but also confusing at times. I see it as a lighthearted approach of something good during very bad times. Meaning that the tone of the movie switched often and took the audience of guard, which is a great thing, but it should have been done more subtle.I must add that the acting was superb, and my hat's off to Hülk, great performance!