Simply titled the Hebrew word for ‘Holocaust’, Claude Lanzmann’s monolithic collage of memory and mind’s eye elicitation looks at the Nazi’s Final Solution via miraculous first hand accounts and harrowing modern day revisitations to the grounds where millions of Jews were mechanically turned to ash, recasting the unnameable atrocities not as history we ache to suppress, but as a looming inescapable truth that haunts our every experience. After over a decade of endless research and the insurmountable task of locating primary sources willing to speak, Lanzmann emerged from the editing room with a cinematic work that deals directly with death. Rather than delving into the exhaustive shock of archival material or a collection of broad academic reflections, the film instead digs deep into the fine details of exactly how the Nazi’s exterminated the Jews of Europe. Despite its shattering subject matter and mind-boggling length, its unparalleled...
- 7/4/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Essentially an outtake from "Shoah", his 1985 epic-length documentary about the Holocaust, Claude Lanzmann's new film is derived from a single interview he conducted in 1979 with Maurice Rossel, who was a representative of the International Red Cross during World War II.
Rossel headed the delegation that visited Theresiendstadt, the so-called "model ghetto" run by the Nazis, and gave it a glowing report. Working in his dogged, Columbo-like style, Lanzmann gently but devastatingly explores the thinking that led to such a mistaken assessment.
Although limited in its scope, not to mention its running time (65 minutes), "A Visitor From the Living" will no doubt become an important entry in the Holocaust cinema canon.
Rossel was only in his mid-20s when he inspected Theresiendstadt (he had also visited Auschwitz but didn't see the crematoriums), and the Germans easily took advantage of his inexperience. The town, basically a way station for Jews who were not fated for immediate execution, was gussied up to make its living conditions look far better than they actually were.
Under Lanzmann's questioning, Rossel, in his 60s at the time of the filming, describes how he was deceived, leaving him under the impression that the camp was filled with privileged Jews who were receiving VIP treatment. Along the way, he subtly but definitively reveals the underlying social attitudes that led to his reasoning and partially defends himself by commenting incredulously on the "passivity" of the Jews who were housed there.
Lanzmann, a masterful interviewer, manages to present the fatal flaws of Rossel's report in detail, miraculously without alienating his subject; the results are far more powerful than if a nasty confrontation had occurred. The surface gentility of this conversation in no way distracts from its underlying horror.
A VISITOR FROM THE LIVING
New Yorker Films
Les Film Aleph-Cineteve
in association with La Septe Arte
Director-producer:Claude Lanzmann
Photography:Dominique Chapuis, William Lubtchansky
Sound:Bernard Aubuoy
Editor:Sabine Mamou
Color
Running time -- 65 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Rossel headed the delegation that visited Theresiendstadt, the so-called "model ghetto" run by the Nazis, and gave it a glowing report. Working in his dogged, Columbo-like style, Lanzmann gently but devastatingly explores the thinking that led to such a mistaken assessment.
Although limited in its scope, not to mention its running time (65 minutes), "A Visitor From the Living" will no doubt become an important entry in the Holocaust cinema canon.
Rossel was only in his mid-20s when he inspected Theresiendstadt (he had also visited Auschwitz but didn't see the crematoriums), and the Germans easily took advantage of his inexperience. The town, basically a way station for Jews who were not fated for immediate execution, was gussied up to make its living conditions look far better than they actually were.
Under Lanzmann's questioning, Rossel, in his 60s at the time of the filming, describes how he was deceived, leaving him under the impression that the camp was filled with privileged Jews who were receiving VIP treatment. Along the way, he subtly but definitively reveals the underlying social attitudes that led to his reasoning and partially defends himself by commenting incredulously on the "passivity" of the Jews who were housed there.
Lanzmann, a masterful interviewer, manages to present the fatal flaws of Rossel's report in detail, miraculously without alienating his subject; the results are far more powerful than if a nasty confrontation had occurred. The surface gentility of this conversation in no way distracts from its underlying horror.
A VISITOR FROM THE LIVING
New Yorker Films
Les Film Aleph-Cineteve
in association with La Septe Arte
Director-producer:Claude Lanzmann
Photography:Dominique Chapuis, William Lubtchansky
Sound:Bernard Aubuoy
Editor:Sabine Mamou
Color
Running time -- 65 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 12/27/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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