Metacritic Film

Forgiving Dr. Mengele

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

First Run Features
Documentary
80 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters February 24, 2006

Forgiving Dr. Mengele is a story of a shocking act of forgiveness by Auschwitz survivor Eva Mozes Kor, who along with her twin sister, Miriam, were victims of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's cruel genetic experiments - an experience that would haunt them their entire lives. Eva's metamorphosis from embittered survivor to tireless advocate for reconciliation is sparked when she, in an attempt to get information about the experiments, meets with another former Auschwitz doctor. Her ideas about justice, revenge and the possibility of healing through forgiveness - as well as the passionate opposition from other survivors - become a window to a larger discussion of the many ways people define forgiveness. (First Run Features)

DIRECTED BY
Bob Hercules
Cheri Pugh

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

69 / 100

Critic Reviews

83	Entertainment Weekly This moving film explores the trauma of a Holocaust survivor with rare complexity.
80	Variety An impressively polished documentary by Bob Hercules and Cheri Hughes. Perhaps even more thought-provoking than its co-helmers intended, pic is bound to spark conversations and debate.
80	LA Weekly It's hard to know whether to be impressed or appalled by Eva Mozes Kor, the Holocaust survivor in Bob Hercules and Cheri Pugh's fascinating documentary who has made forgiving the Nazis her life's work.
80	Los Angeles Times The very title suggests that this compelling and provocative film is going to be different from other Holocaust documentaries.
75	TV Guide Kor's intentions are beyond reproach, but her campaign raises discomfiting questions.
75	New York Daily News It's clear that Kor's goal is to keep people talking, and thinking, about impossibly difficult subjects. And there's no debating her success in that regard.
75	The Onion (A.V. Club) Though some of the heated exchanges in Forgiving Dr. Mengele seem awkward and staged, they put Kor at the center of a riveting debate over how best to come to terms with past horrors, and the potential (and limits) of putting them to rest.
70	The New York Times For a film about death-camp survivors Forgiving Dr. Mengele is surprisingly uplifting and, at times, even lighthearted.
70	Village Voice Melissa Levine This uneven but riveting documentary chronicles Kor's journey to a kind of grace little understood (or appreciated) by many fellow Jews and survivors.
70	The Hollywood Reporter A worthy addition to the ever-growing canon of Holocaust-related films.
63	Chicago Tribune In many respects, Forgiving Dr. Mengele is an ordinary documentary, stylistically and technically unexceptional. But its subject enobles the work. So does Kor : determined, indomitable, and by the end of the movie, a symbol herself of both survival and mercy.
50	Chicago Reader Eva Mozes Kor, the lecturer and activist at the center of Forgiving Dr. Mengele, is most notable for her zeal in refusing to be a victim.
50	New York Post An extraordinary woman like Eva Kor deserves a less ordinary biography.

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