Director: Alain Resnais
Year: 1955
Country: France
Language: French
The documentation of man's inhumanity towards man is as old as mankind itself. Even with all that experience, little prepared the world to face the experiences and horrible atrocities of the Holocaust. The Holocaust, also known as "the Shoah" (Hebrew word for "destruction") was the for a systematic state sponsored genocide led by Adolf Hitler throughout German occupied territory. Over six million European Jews died as well as many communists, civilians, homosexuals & disabled. The Nazi Government specifically targeted the extermination of jews, gypsies and handicapped people This film captures the atrocities on camera, and while it is disturbing, it is absolutely necessary.
Alain Resnais' Night and Fog is one of the most detailed depictions of the horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps caught on camera. Filmed in 1955 at several concentration camps in Poland, the film combines new color and black and white footage with black and white newsreels, footage shot by the victorious allies, and stills, to tell the story not only of the camps, but to portray the horror of man's brutal inhumanity.
Denial is one of the key themes in Night and Fog. There is footage of the dead being bulldozed into mass graves, corpses hung on barbed wire, faces frozen in fear, boney nude bodies being paraded for extreme humiliation, trans that come and go to who knows where. Resnais shows the gas chambers and crematoriums in vivid detail. Shockingly he shows that the concentration camps didn't happen in some isolated area away from society, but in nearby cities where many people would know what was going on. Hinting that many civilians must have looked the other way, certainly Nazi leaders did. Throughout the film they claim that they are not responsible.
It certainly boggles the mind at how humans could treat each other in such a way. What's even more concerning is the distrust and denial throughout that exists even a decade after the fall of the Third Reich. What I admire about this film is that places collective blame on people, rather than pointing the finger at one person. One person could not get away with this is millions of people had not enabled him. Resnais realized he NEEDED to make a film this this because the nature of the fading memory might erase the Nazi horrors and thus cause history to repeat itself. The story of the Holocaust is one which MUST be told again and again.
In conclusion, Night of Fog is one of the most disturbing yet necessary films you will ever see. A friend once told me that it was a paralyzing and life altering experience. It is certainly a film that will make you think twice before harming your fellow man, and it is a film that will definitely make you cry. It is not for the weak of heart and if you fear that you may get some serious trauma from watching this film then I do not recommend you see it. Despite this, Night and Fog is a brave film by a brave man. Praise it! 5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment