A classic

Since I kept hearing some great things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Well, the damned thing turned out to be really impressive, even quite unforgettable I might add. Indeed, it is a great companion piece to ‘Shoah’, even if both movies tackled this subject in two completely different ways. At least, this movie was much shorter than ‘Shoah’ so you might assume that it is much easier to swallow but you would be actually mistaken. In fact, you might be grateful that it is rather short because they gave us some of the most horrifying images I came across. The interesting thing is that the damned thing started with some rather bucolic shots of the countryside with some fairly whimsical tune. They even made some sarcastic jokes about the architecture of the guards towers which was just so unexpected and it actually really floored me. The narration was also quite amazing. Indeed, it was so poetic in spite the fact that the material was dealing with the closest thing to hell you can imagine. It was apparently written by some guy called Jean Cayrol who was, unsurprisingly, a survivor from one of these death camps. Seriously, how incredibly difficult it must have been for him to write this stuff only 10 years after this nightmare took place? In general, it is quite incredible that they came up with such a movie so soon after the actual events. Eventually, I think that, back then, people already had the need to remember, to look back to what happen, even if it was so horrible because, if we don’t, we might forget it or not believe something so horrendous might have ever taken place. Anyway, to conclude, it really deserves its reputation, it is an incredible masterpiece and it is pretty much a must-see in my book.