This is ground-breaking film explores really the most evil moment in human history in a way that's never quite been done before or since. There's a real sense of powerlessness and hopelessness to this, there's nothing you can do but sit and watch in horror. I bought this on Blu Ray and it has a 4:3 aspect ratio and it's been nicely restored with good quality colour and sound. It came out in the 1980s but the director spent a lot of time interviewing and filming for this film. The film is made up almost entirely of eye witness accounts of what people saw and experienced. It uses only footage shot for the series, visiting all the key locations, there's a haunting quality to these beautiful polish forests where these truly evil events occurred. Now nature has taken it over again and there's little evidence left of what happened. All the more reason to capture these interviews on film before the personal and individual stories become lost. Survivors are spread out across the world, none apparently ever wanted to live in Germany or Poland afterwards. The film uses these old folksongs to chilling and sometimes beautiful effect but that's about it in terms of the music for the film. At over 9 hours long this is a huge film that you probably want to split over two days. The language is split between polish, French, English and many others to a lesser degree. You learn so much in this film about the details of what happened, things I never knew before. The lack of music doesn't matter as the power of the words are all you need. If this was made today it would be much shorter and slicker and faster edited but I think that misses the point, this shouldn't be rushed or be wining awards for it's editing or music. The film uses a train at times to sort of recreate the journey to the concentration camps. Many of the details are terrible and the survivors are reluctant to talk about it. The director asks good detailed questions without ever being asked the number question, why did this happen? He's also very good at getting people talking and many of the people featured are not really that old, only in their 50s for instance when interviewed. We are also reminded too this was a continental murder system with victims transported from France, Holland, Greece, all across Europe. It asks the terrible question about did the allies know what was happening? Did the local people? Did the bureaucrats sat in their offices? The film doesn't go into the 1930s and the rise of the Nazis, it focuses really just on 1940-45.
Really every person should see this film. It should be shown in every school in the UK.
Really every person should see this film. It should be shown in every school in the UK.