Les Diamants de la nuit

This is one of those works of art that deal with historical tragedy not by attempting to paint or even reference the entire picture, but by focusing on a much smaller story, and in that way, revealing aspects of it at a very human level. At the outset here, we find two Jewish boys who have escaped a train bound for a concentration camp desperately running through a dense forest, and are immediately immersed into their struggle.

One of the techniques that Jan Nemec employed was to keep the camera on the boys as close as possible to heighten the sense of disorientation and exhaustion they feel. In a similar way, he got into their heads with voiceless flashbacks to their days before the war, like catching a ride on a streetcar in Prague, or sledding down an embankment in the wintertime, the natural kinds of things their minds might wander to. The memories of a would-be girlfriend, the various streets and doors of Prague, and a solitary bell sounding periodically all make for haunting, surreal daydreams.

The film makes its strongest points about man's inhumanity when we are jolted back to the present, where a group of elderly hunters are tracking them down, perhaps tipped off by the wide-eyed, emotionless woman at a farm house who gave them a little food. "Halt! Halt!" one shouts, while they all fire away at the kids. They're eventually captured, and the geezers celebrate over sausages and beer, eating in front of the famished boys, oblivious to their hunger. They raise a toast to the fact that they "did it," which is intercut with a shot of the boys desperately drinking out of a river while on the run.

This is damning commentary of the German citizenry during the war, and an indictment of those who offered the excuse afterwards that they didn't know the horror of what Hitler was committing. There is such a bitter component to seeing these old men drunkenly carrying on with their fellows after having lived a full life, contrasted to the boys, whose lives seem destined to be cut short, and barbarically. Despite their release at the end, it's done with cruelty, as if it's all a game. It's a story that's obviously specific to real-life experiences of Arnost Lustig and his friend, but there is a universality to it as well, in the older generation being so blind to suffering, which is devastating.

This surrealist masterpiece directed by Jan Nemec has had limited exhibition in the US. Mostly seen at film festivals and in museums, this 63 minute film concerns two boys who escape from a train taking them to a Nazi death camp. As they run through dense, rugged and unfamiliar terrain, their escape is interpolated with their dreams, hallucinations, fantasies, and memories. Like Forbidden Games, Fires on the Plains, and Grand Illusion, Diamonds of the Night is an anti-war film that does not deal with actual warfare. With a minimum of dialog, the film conveys the boys' physical and psychological deterioration with a maximum of cinematic bravura. This sadly neglected film deserves a Criterion DVD release.

This is an incredible film. Before viewing it I was told it wasn't available in the states, and what a shame. It's stark visuals and haunting imagery kept me on the edge of my seat. I wouldn't care if I got a version w/o subtitles because their are maybe 10 spoken lines, and time is played with as the viewer follows flash backs forwards and dream sequences. This is the best war movie I have ever seen. The beginning scene running up the hill is bone chilling.

If at all possible watch this movie.

This movie was hard to come by but I found it at the public library for rent. The video included Nemec's A Loaf of Bread, which oddly had subtitles, in German! I know as much German as Czech. Anyway about Diamonds of the Night. At the beginning I really liked the use of hand held camera and even without spoken word I knew what was going on, but as the movie progressed it over-surrealized itself, without establishing itself as a work of surrealism. I am not sure if the tape had the complete version because it just seemed to end with no resolution. Since no one else apparently has seen it, I may never know. It wasn't very long, and was pretty cool at first I'll give it 7/10.

(1964) Diamonds of the Night/ Démanty noci (In Czechoslovakian with English subtitles) WAR DRAMA

Loosely adapted from the autobiographical novel "Darkness Has No Shadow" by Arnost Lustig, co-written and directed by Jan Nemec that has two young boys, První (Ladislav Jánsky) and Druhý (Antonín Kumbera) escaping and are on the run toward the dense forest while it appears are shot at. And while trekking through the forest, we are also shown through flashbacks small hints what each or both of them used to do before Nazis invasion.

This is my second viewing, and I must admit I do not understand everything that was going on, as a portion of this movie is also about the worst case scenarios, in which one of the two boys are suggesting it, before something else happens instead.