Have you ever wondered how your life would be if you were in Syria or Palestine? In a place that is ravaged by war, amidst various uncertainties, leading a life between hope and death. War has always been and will forever be about politicians, their ego's and the decision they take within the four walls of a room. Be it the World Wars, horrifying genocides, and various civil wars, it's always the common multitude who suffer the effects of these effects.

In 2013, the then Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was deposed following a military coup backed by opposition parties and religious leaders. Soon chaos unleashed and civil war broke out, pro-Morsi supporters and the pro-military factions clashed on the streets of Egypt. Set against this violent and dark period in Egyptian history, director Mohamed Diab creates a claustrophobic epic that mirrors how innocent lives are strangled by a country that is at war with itself. 'Clash' was released in 2016 and soon it was acclaimed for its making, shot almost entirely inside a police van. The audience along with the characters are confined to this space till the end of the film, experiencing the riots, conflicts, and unrest outside.

As the police van struggles through the violent streets, people are brought in. Inside the van there are demonstrators from both sides - rebels and pro-army supporters - also, ordinary folk including journalists, women, children, and youngsters. The tension has mounted and protests have already begun by the time they were detained. While the streets turned blood red, they knew things are not going to end well. The questions are; What will happen to them? Will they survive?

Wars and associated crimes not just haunt those experiencing it. It lingers on history and memory as reminders of how low humankind could stoop. The Holocaust exposed the extent of animosity and evil, human beings are capable of doing. For the Jews, the questions that echoed in their mind during this darkest period in human history were the same as the characters in ‘Clash’: What will happen to us? How will we survive? So when Steven Spielberg decided to make a film on Holocaust, he tried to capture these questions in the most subtle way through the cinematic medium. And that's how the ‘Schindler’s List' was born. “We are not making a film, we are making a document”, that's what Spielberg told about ‘Schindler’s List'.

The film follows the German industrialist Oskar Schindler who saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, by employing them in his factory. Schindler, in the pretext of profiteering from the war, does everything to save the Jews in Poland from being killed and tortured in concentration camps. In situations of choosing between good and evil, Oskar Schindler shows us how we always have the choice to embrace good even in the face of evil. There are times when we lose faith in humanity. But then, think about Oskar Schindler.

Though the eternal questions about the cinematic representation of genocide and historical events remain unresolved, both ‘Clash’ and ‘Schindler’s LIist' are unforgettable cinematic experiences. By the time the films end, you would find it hard to breathe, saturated by overwhelming emotions, and the movies will be forever etched in your heart. Wars, genocides, and refugee crises are all ugly blemishes on the progress we made as a civilization. As John Lennon's famous lyrics goes, “imagine all the people livin' life in peace.. sharing all the world”. We may be dreamers to hope so, but as always, hope is not a bad thing, it is the best of all things. So let us hope.