Credits
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Summary
The Holocaust – two words forever etched on the consciousness
of mankind. They resound in our minds like an implacable condemnation from a
Celestial power, for a crime which rips the heart and soul out of man’s
moral purpose. Not
just killing, but meticulously planned and executed slaughter on an industrial scale.
Men, women and children, young and old, rounded up,
humiliated and butchered, like a cull of diseased cattle.
How could it have happened? What evil entered the mind of Man and drove him
to this act of ultimate depravity? Those who suffered may have
left our world, but the evidence remains – writings and images that are a
stark reminder to future generations of where hatred for one’s
fellow man can lead. It must not happen again. We must never forget.
Review
Commissioned by the French Committee for the History of the Second World War, Nuit
et brouillard is widely recognised as the film which provides the most potent depiction
of the horrors of the Holocaust. Even knowing about the atrocities committed in
the Nazi concentration camps is not enough to prepare you for the trauma of watching this
film.
Nuit et brouillard is simply one of the most poignant and shocking pieces of cinema ever created. It is all the more effective for its subdued style of presentation, as sombre and as restrained as a documentary on any other subject. In contrast to what you might expect, there is hardly any emotion in the film’s narration. Yet it is a film which has an immense emotional impact on its spectator. The film was directed by Alain Resnais, who earned a great reputation for his short documentaries in the 1940s and 1950s before emerging as a prominent director of the Nouvelle Vague, with such films as Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) and L’Année dernière à Marienbad (1961). Whilst Nuit et Brouillard is rigorously framed as a documentary, it shows the stamp of its director very clearly, particularly his technique for merging past and present, suggesting the importance of memory in our waking consciousness. Subdued colour photography of the now deserted concentration camps is inter-cut with harrowing archive footage depicting the fate of the deportees. The film is telling us that behind the ‘banality’ of our collective recollection of World war II, there lies a horror of unspeakable inhumanity that is scarcely imaginable. The film ends with a simple question. Who is responsible for this? Perhaps we, the succeeding generations, are, if ever we forget the lesson of the Holocaust. © James Travers 2002 I saw this film in high school and I have never forgotten it. These true images will stay in your mind forever. The horrible atrocities of the Holocaust are all here. And for anyone that thinks it didn’t happen - this movie shows it all, while it happened, and you can’t deny that. Every 12th grade student should see it... so it doesn’t happen again. 5 stars. © Leasa (Maryland) 2008 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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