Night Will Fall

As above, a factual and irrefutable documentary about the appalling conditions experienced in concentration camps, and the simply dreadful outcome suffered by so many of those who were interned.

The scenes were graphic and disturbing, and if they seem repetitive, then that is because the atrocities were so commonplace. It was not a performance, the film is a factual record, thus the purpose in making it was to educate those who want to know the truth, not to entertain anyone.

As the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz fell this week, I felt that this film serves to help educate all of us who who were not even born at the time of such events. To help us understand the depths of depravity that mankind is capable of, to help us to understand the dreadful consequences of any kind of racism and to remind us that it shouldn't be necessary to have a war to draw allies together (how many people are aware that a staggering 26M Russians were killed in the process of defeating the Nazis?)

A monumental and depressing work, brought together as a lesson to us all that this must never happen again

The footage shown in this documentary is really excruciating... And it goes on and on and on. The film never really shies away from showing you the horrors of hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies in concentration camps being dragged across and piled up one of top of the others as if they were just mannequins. It's a nightmare-inducing vision that I don't think I will ever be able to erase from my memory. Mountain of personal objects, spectacles even human hair carefully sorted according to type and colours.

And yet after a while I felt it was all beginning to be a little too much and I thought the film was probably going around in a circle and did not really have a lot more to say other than just showing detail over detail of the horror. Not that there is anything to say about the carnage that took place in those places, but somehow I felt this was probably a 40/50 minutes or so film stretched to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Yes the footage found is an incredible discovery and a terrifying testimony of a past that shouldn't be forgotten, but other than that, the film has very very little else to say. I also felt some of the use of the interviewees was a bit heavy-handed: cut to people staring into the void, or the use of pointless bit of dialogue just for the sake of seeing this people breaking down into tears half way through the phrase... There wasn't really any need for that. The original footage was heartbreaking enough without having to resort to people crying to make us the audience feel sad about it... or to dark ominous music. But that's just a question of taste. It's hard to review a documentary like this. Give it a small rating and you can be accused of being insensitive. But that's when you should really make a distinction between the subject matter and the material being shown and the actual craft of the documentary. The later is rather plodding, uneven, and as I said before a bit heavy-handed, but since the subject matter is so powerful, on balance 7 out 10 is perfectly justifiable.

This film describes in detail what we already knew about the Nazis. The details of their horrible atrocities need not be gone to in detail here, except as to the contents of the film, itself. Few people realize the immediate effects of the initial sight of the camps on American Generals. Patton toured one camp and emerged so outraged that several adjutants said that they had never seen him so angry. Eisenhower toured a camp and remarked that many US soldiers didn't know what they were fighting for, but now, he could show them what they were fighting against. The large responses to the holocaust were, "oh, it'll never happen again, now!" Look at Uganda 1994, and Serbia 1995. This will never stop unless somebody intercedes. It is the opening of the gateway to hell, with evil piloting the way. If this is not stopped in its tracks, the armies of darkness will march across the earth. It could happen to any one of us, if we don't meet the measures of a tyrannical police state.

This has made me think of something that never occurred to me watching other documentaries of the holocaust. These tragic victims were disposed of without ceremony or dignity; each was an individual and when we think of the unthinkable events of this time the numbers of victims are too enormous to encompass, I mourn them all and yet as one person I cannot do enough to honour to six million. Could there be some way that we could have a worldwide movement to have individuals adopt one victim - if possible to know their birthday and date of death, to undertake to honour that one person in whatever way they might honour a friend or relative who had died. As one reviewer said this is about Jewish people but also intellectuals, homosexuals, gypsies - if six million people across the world were all honouring and remembering one of the victims, as time passes might we not do more to prevent night from falling again.

The imagery is searing. Yes, the finished documentary is loosely assembled, as others point out. But then it's the graphic horrors that count. At 75, I've seen the hellish horrors in other documentaries. Nonetheless, the tale must be told every generation, and what could be more persuasive than such footage. I'm glad the filming comes from a number of death camps, showing the systematic nature of the extermination, and what, I think, most any of us are capable of given certain conditions.

I am sorry that footage showing the gas chambers was apparently not yet available. That would further demonstrate the murderous Nazi intent. I've heard apologists claim that the mounds of emaciated dead resulted from a wartime lack of food, not the result of intentional starvation. Still, those German civilians parading through the camps do look well fed. Too bad that more isn't detailed about how the documentary got caught up in the politics of the day. As a result the film ended up filed away for decades. That appears an interesting story deserving of more explanation. Also, the interviews with survivors bring a bygone time to life, and are often as wrenching as the past is. For them, the reality of the camps is still a vivid presence.

No, the 75-minutes are not entertaining, as others point out. Nonetheless, the visible record of "human junk piles" presents an opportunity for our deepest reflection.