Jonathan G
Not giving this a ranking as this film honestly feels… beyond a “star” ranking… this short doc from Alain Resnais is surreal and doesn’t hold back from showing you the horrors that were endured by the Jewish people. It manages to unfold everything, doing a better job than most feature films, and this is solidified in as a classic in cinema history. Once you watch this, there’s no going back.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
08/04/24
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Ekaterina P
"Je ne suis pas responsable"
As are the words of the SS officers in the post-war trials, depicted here, in this painful, true, terrific documentary, narrated by Jean Cayrol, French poet and camp survivor.
My French is shabby, and I saw this film without subtitles. But seeing it like this gave me a powerful jolt to the chest none the less, in a way like the dialogue-less "Koyaanisqatsi" has the ability to do. Except this 34 minute documentary is visceral. It depicts the revolting, unimaginable, heinous crimes beyond human comprehension, committed in the German concentration camps during WWII. It spares no expense and ruthlessly shows you everything you don't want to see.
As the movie starts with its "peaceful landscape of a meadow", I am immediately transported back to when I visited Auschwitz myself more than 10 years ago, fully prepared, and yet absolutely not prepared at all for what I was about to see.
The music is eerily unsettling and nothing what so ever alike the pathos and melodrama we are used to today, most famously, of course, almost forced upon us by John Williams in "Schindler's List." I might be one of the biggest John Williams fans in the world, but a topic like the Holocaust is not one that needs orchestral support to be heard and understood.
This movie must be seen just like any war memorial must be visited. It will hurt, it will make you sick, and it is necessary.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
10/04/23
Full Review
william k
(Meanwhile) classic, important early documentary is a solemn, thoughtful and stirring depiction of the Nazis, presenting shocking footage that (at the time) was largely not yet realized by its audience.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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William L
I've been going through the 1001 Movies list and have recently sorted them by length, picking out short films to knock off in quick succession. There are some interesting films on that end of the bell curve: a couple Buñuel shorts, the fantastic La Jetée, but they were at the end of the day just movies. Night and Fog is something else entirely; it is absolutely haunting. Resnais makes the audience, numbed from the pain of the actual experience by at least a decade of life experiences, confront three key features that make the Holocaust so fundamentally terrifying: 1) its victims were people, rather than statistics, and largely innocent of any wrongdoing, 2) the scale of their extermination was at a level and efficiency that is difficult to fathom, and 3) the actual process was methodical, industrial, and accomplished in a stunningly conventional manner. The deeply disturbing contemporary footage of the camps in action is only made more so by the pairing with images of the same locations a decade later, now sinking into the ground, left behind as an unwanted shame - a direct condemnation of the cowardice the entire world who would forget the extermination of millions because it is uncomfortable. (5/5)
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/24/21
Full Review
andres s
Nazi propaganda and everyone being brainwashed by what they thought was the right cause to believe in. It's pretty unsettling to know that some of these concentration camps are still there. They've just been abandoned. This footage is unreal. I've never seen footage from the Holocaust in such detail as this.
The S.S. had brothels in some of the concentration camps where the women were better fed, but still prisoners. These were really dark times. What always disturbs me about the Holocaust was how the Nazi's viewed the deportees like useless play things. Disposable, expendable and pointless flesh to be done whatever with. S.S. soldiers were dehumanized in a sense. I think one of the most disturbing things is seeing the big piles of dead people. Seeing all the still lifeless human bodies thrown on top of one another, and how you can see each bone protruding from the skin, is really scarring. The way they would bulldoze all the dead bodies into the dirt pit, Jesus Christ.
The way the documentary just gets to the point without trying to soften the blow is something I can respect. The documentary presents the facts, images and footage as they are. I can definitely see how this might have inspired some ideas in Schindler's List. This documentary was so jam packed with so much information that I didn't know about, that I might have to watch it again. A pretty powerful political message as well. No one want's to take responsibility for what happened. Not the Kapo, not the officers, and especially not the commandants. Really powerful stuff this documentary. And only 32 minutes long! These types of things make me reflect on the life we all live nowadays and how good and spoiled we have it. I can only hope that something like this never happens again. It's so hard to believe that it happened because it seems so outlandish and dark.
Incredible documentary though.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Reading about these atrocities in textbooks is one thing, but actually seeing them? This is one of the most disturbing movies I have ever watched, and one that no matter how much I might want to unsee it, I will never be able to.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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