`Schindler's List' fails first censorship hurdle

`Schindler's List' fails first censorship hurdle

JAKARTA (JP): The Oscar-winning film Schindler's List failed
the first censorship test when it was reviewed by five members of
the Film Censorship Board.

Soekanto, the Board's executive director, told The Jakarta
Post yesterday that there were disagreements among the five
members on whether to pass the film. A unanimous decision is
required to allow its showing to the public.

Soekanto declined to say how the five members voted but said
that some of them, including himself, did not see any particular
objection to allowing the film to be shown to the Indonesian
public.

This means that the fate of Schindler's List will be decided
by a vote at a plenary meeting of the 45-member Board scheduled
within the next few days.

The movie by producer Steven Spielberg is a dramatized account
about a German profiteer who saved more than 1,000 Polish Jews
from the Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

The movie, which won seven Academy Awards, including the
Oscars for best film and best director, has stirred controversy
in at least three Southeast Asian countries.

Malaysia originally barred the film but then changed its
stance but still insists on censoring the movie. The Philippines
agreed to show the film uncut after Spielberg threatened to pull
the movie out altogether.

Many Moslem leaders in Indonesia have urged the censors to bar
Schindler's List on the basis of its being Zionist propaganda,
although they have not seen the film which has come to Indonesia
on the heels of last month's massacre of Palestinian Moslems in
Hebron, West Bank, by a Jewish doctor.

Soekanto said he personally liked the movie and did not see
any particular message representing any particular religion. "I
don't know what Zionist propaganda is."

He recalled that in the 1970s, the Board passed the movie
Diary of Anne Frank which also tells about the situation of the
Jewish people during World War II.

He added that even if Schindler's List gets the vote, parts of
it would have to be cut. "There are certain scenes which are not
appropriate for our public, such as scenes of nudity and sexual
intercourse."

"If the owner of the movie does not like our cuts and decides
not to distribute the movie, it's his right to do so," he said.

He declined to predict the outcome of the vote, stressing that
the Board comprises people from different backgrounds who will be
looking at the film from different perspectives. (01)