Product Description

On Schindler's List there were hundreds of names.

On Raoul Wallenberg's there were tens of thousands.


"A film of epic ambitions" (The New York Times), Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg chronicles the last days of the war in Budapest. It is a moving and sensitive portrait of internationally known hero, Raoul Wallenberg, a small-scale businessman whose life was transformed after he witnessed bodies being thrown from a train on its way to Auschwitz.

International film star Stellan Skarsgård (Aberdeen, Dancer in the Dark, Good Will Hunting, Amistad, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October) "is merely perfect" (New York Post) as Raoul Wallenberg, an attache to the Swedish Embassy who moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1944 to help Jews escape Adolph Eichmann's deadly path. Wallenberg saved over 60,000 people in Budapest's Jewish ghetto by helping them escape Hungary with Swedish papers ("Wallenberg passports"), or getting them placed in protective housing. His greatest challenge came in 1945, when he saved the lives of some 65,000 Jews in the ghetto by forcing the hand of the German general responsible for their fate. On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was taken to Moscow as a Soviet prisoner. He was never released, and his fate has remained a mystery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23972 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-11-05
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Review
The most passionate and best re-creation of Wallenberg and his moment... Brilliant. --New York Post

Review
Like Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List'... a distinguished and deeply moving addition to the cinema of the Holocaust. --Philadelphia Inquirer

Review
Deeply unsettling... harrowing... chilling. --The New York Times

Customer Reviews

Not an anti-hero, just an average person doing right
I feel fortunate to have seen this movie and I wish I had known about it years earlier. I have earlier heard about Raoul Wallenberg as a person who disappeared into the Stalin Soviet political prison system, but I knew little else. It is apparently still a mystery as to why he must have been a threat to Stalin unless Stalin presumed that Wallenberg would have remained in Hungary and agitated against the impending communist state. Regardless, Wallenberg's exploits to ultimately save thousands of Jews from extermination by fanatical Nazi's and Hungarian fascists is a story worth retelling.

What is most poignant about the story is that Wallenberg is presented as a very average person, but a person witnessing atrocities in German held territories. For most of the war, he was like the many thousands who too knew of the genocide and did nothing. But, for his own reasons, he chose to become involved. His role was relatively short (less than a year) and it could have been a complete failure. In fact, he did greatly succeed according to not only this movie, but in many other accounts of his actions. But, his success was less the story than his unselfish efforts. Unlike the majority who remained blissfully ignorant, he had enough self-awareness so as to judge himself unfavorably for life if he did not act. To me that is the real lesson, what did this story tell me about myself and what all of us should do when we see injustice?

It is true that the movie did not focus as much on his many achievements, but the film makers decided to keep the film within two hours and to increase the drama by alluding to the triumphs and viewing him in moments of dire consequences and severe spiritual strain. He witnessed children murdered and we could empathize with his helplessness. The film presents these death scenes matter-of-factly as Wallenberg looks at the survivors who until that moment saw him as a mythical character who could stop all such killings. Wallenberg was often able to escape for his safety, but stayed. Would any of us have done the same? I hope that I would have, but I can never know. I only hope that whatever he finally faced in Soviet prison, he knew an internal peace of having done more than he ever thought possible of himself. Please see this movie and show it to your children to keep these lessons alive.

One of those films that stay with you
This is a dark and realistic film about how Wallenberg wanted to save defenseless men, women and children. I think that the selection of Wallenberg for the job amongst a group of Jewish leaders was rather heart gripping. The leaders referred to his papers saying his diplomas weren't that great and job history wasn't of that kind that would make him a first choice for the job. But, Wallenberg kept on saying; - You don't understand. I HAVE DECIDED THAT I AM GOING TO DO THIS JOB.

In Budapest he did what he could to save Jews of all ages. The viewer is also allowed to witness how it becomes increasingly harder to save people.

In this film you are made to face the brutal facts of what that happened during World War II. The film stays with you. Still, I normally watch films that I like many times, but with this one I haven't been able to do so.

Even so, I cannot forget what I saw.

an ACCURATE view of the holocaust
Ignore the following review. I almost didn't buy this movie because of those horrid comments. But my intuition told me that I still should, and I am glad that I did. Raoul Wallenberg was NOT brooding and ineffectual in this movie, but rather was a heroic, caring, motivated man who did all he could to help many of the Jews of the Budapest ghetto. His character in this movie can easily be compared to that of Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List. I did NOT notice any significantly inexplicable flashbacks, abrupt transitions or dark picture that the following reviewer complained about. I agree with the last reviewer that this movie is not as emotional as Schindler's List, and certainly is not quite as well-done, but is still among the best holocaust movies that I've seen.