BECAUSE REMEMBERANCE SHOULD NOT BE CONFINED TO JUST ONE WEEK... "SHOAH"

This post was originally meant for Holocaust remembrance week. God knows it would have suited the week infinitely better, subject-matter wise. But it took me a while to get through the watching stage for this one. And I don’t just mean because of the length. The subject matter means that you cannot actually sit down and watch the thing in a couple of large chunks. The “sessions” I watched this rather extraordinary documentary in left me drained, and in serious need of a drink and a good few episodes of some sort of sit-com to bring me back to the real world.

Shoah is a truly extraordinary documentary. If you decide to watch a single thing about the Holocaust, make it Shoah and you never need to watch anything again. Not just because it is a mind blowing 9,5 hours long, with no natural cut-off points or episodes. Because making a (very) long documentary is all well and good, but you can perfectly well manage to use that time to say very little. Director Claude Lanzmann uses the time to say virtually anything you can think of, and tell stories from the Holocaust that you may not have heard before.

Because yes, we hear the heart-rending and extraordinary stories of the survivors of the camps. But we also talk to the drivers of the trains that took them there. The villagers in the surrounding fields who were allowed to tend their crops as the prisoners were worked to death in the camp next door. The regular poles and Checks who joined the resistance after realising the true extent of the horrors taking place on their door steps. And last, but by no means least, the Nazi soldiers who oversaw the killing machines.

The one advantage this work has over modern works is the fact that since it was made in the early to mid-80s (the official date of the film is 1985 but it must have taken a good few years to assemble) a lot of the people who were involved in the Holocaust (be they victims, perpetrators or just witnesses from afar) were quite old, but still alive and able to tell their stories with clarity. Not a single, solitary frame of archive footage is used. Which makes sense, because I am sure that Shoah was meant as an archive- an archive of memories.

You have often heard me drone on about how difficult it is to make a film about a topic like the Second World War, simply because of the profusion of material about it. But Lanzmann, meticulous in his approach, manages to elicit stories and points of view that I have not seen before or since. I was especially touched by the testimony of the train driver who was responsible for driving the infamous cattle trains to Treblinka. It will not be a major plot spoiler to tell you that the only way the drivers of these trains could bear the job they were given was by making the journey almost blind drunk. For even above the roar of the train, it would seem that the lamentations of the people in the first few carriages were clearly audible from the locomotive…

Then of course there are the interviews with the ex- Nazis. Some of these interviews were actually filmed in secret as the Nazis had originally only agreed to do voice recordings. But the hidden camera imagery shows old men who could, for all intents and purposes be your own grandfather. “We may have to stop early” warns one old man “I have heart problems as you know and… I will let you know if feel I cannot go on.” And while this warning is a clear demonstration of emotions built up inside, the ex-soldier uses a meticulously drawn map and stick to explain the day to day workings of the camp (Auschwitz) and talks about the details of operating the death machine in a manner that is almost matter of fact. One cannot help but wonder at the extraordinary defence mechanisms the human soul throws up to combat stress and memories…

As a modern day film-viewer you will find Lanzmann’s style of filming hard to get into. It is slow moving, and seems to focus on the tiny details you may at first find irrelevant or unimportant. What Lanzmann is actually trying to do is to reconstruct the entire landscape of the Holocaust. The workaday details. The little and the large that made up the entire, horrendous death machine. The result is one of the most realistic portraits of the death camps, where your imagination can transport you there so much more efficiently than stock-footage of liberated camps ever could… Because that’s the tricky thing about archive footage… So much of it is from “after the event” as it were. The only real record of what actually happened in the camps are memories. And perhaps the only way of truly doing these memories justice is to record them in the most minute detail possible. To this end, Lanzmann does not even use voiceovers or subtitles for some of the interviewees who don’t speak a European language. We hear their story in their own voice, then through that of the interpreter. It maybe takes a little longer, but the emotion in the voices of the storytellers (for what else can I call them) is not lost.

This is a definite must watch. And not necessarily just for Holocaust remembrance week but for all times, for truly, remembrance of these horrors should not be confined to just one week…  Just set aside some time over a few days, and bear witness to these stories, so unbelievable and so horrifying that they could only ever be real… 

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF INFANTS : "THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PIJAMAS"

I had heard SO much about this film. I guess you will have figured this out about me right now; I don’t do films that are “immensely popular”. If I feel a film is becoming a fad, I do have a certain tendency to steer clear from it. Not because I don’t trust public opinion, I just… I don’t know, it’s my inner artist or something “not wanting to follow the crowd” I guess. That’s one thing. The other thing is, I guess I’m a little wary around holocaust films. I mean, there are SO many of them. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a lot, but the inevitable result of a large number of people crowding around a single topic is a lot of rather mediocre artwork. I mean , I’m sorry, but it’s true. Now, it has to be said that The Boy in the Striped Pijamas is not %100 original, in that all the themes it uses we actually have seen before. You might argue it was done better. But then again, this film takes it and uses it, adds on and adapts very, very well. And that is what artistry is largely about is it not? The adaptation and adding is just as important as coming up with an original story – especially in this world where truly original stories are becoming tougher and tougher to come by.

The Boy in the Striped Pijamas is the story of eight year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield, who, it seems, is well on his way to becoming the acing phenomenon of the next generation. I didn't actually recoginse him at first but do the reasearch. He has been around. In a good way). He is the son of a high ranking SS official. He doesn’t quite understand what that means, but it seems that his father, along with other soldiers, is working hard to make the world they live in a better place. And that can’t be a bad thing. Bruno is very sad when his parents inform him that they will have to move out of Berlin. Bruno is very sad to leave his friends and his familiar routine behind, but the countryside soon begins to afford other occupations for him. One thing  that piques his interest more than anything is the “farm” they can see from the top bedroom windows. Some of the “farmers” who work there come to the house to run errands sometimes. Bruno thinks they’re a little odd, especially since they seem to wear pyjamas the whole time… His parents tell him he is strictly not allowed to talk to these people, but kids will be kids. Bruno strikes up friendship with a little boy his age called Shmuel. Bruno just wants a good friend to play with, and pass the time. Their friendship, however, will have consequences far beyond even his active imaginations wildest imaginings…

Of course you got the film I was talking about : Life is Beautiful. The classic that “made” Roberto Begnini. And my goodness, what a classic. It is so important to return to the innocence and sense of discovery innate in the soul of a child to take a fresh look at what we’re doing from time to time. Especially in the face of horror such as the Holocaust, not least because we are all pretty much in the face of something we have never seen before amazed and horrified. The thing about Bruno is though, his family do their level best to keep the evil from him. To prolong his and his sister Gretel’s innocence, they use every single trick they know but in the end, to no avail.

The film is touching in so many ways. It shows how the different family members do their best to cope with what is in effect a very stressful and upsetting situation. I mean even the father, who is the default “bad guy” by the end of the film can be understood. I honestly don’t know how I would react in his shoes either to be fair. But we should keep that discussion for after you have watched the film. The Boy in the Striped Pijamas is another striking testament to how miserable war really makes every single one of us. And that no matter how hard we try to escape it or block it out, it will come crawling through to our lives. The only way to stop it is to stop war completely, but well… That seems to be a lesson this planet isn’t quite ready to learn yet… 

EICHMANN – THE SOLDIER. THE FATHER. THE MONSTER.

Ok, heads up, this is a Second World War film. Another one. Now I’m sure you have your own view on that statement; I am personally one of those who are not sick and tired of them. Not of the good ones at any rate. And Eichmann is definitely “a good one”.
My only criticism of the film would be that it pre-supposes a bit of general knowledge; in brief, the answers to the questions “Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did he do?” (To be fair though, they are pretty easy to pick up as you go along)To those of us who do not know, he was a high ranking Nazi officer who was in charge of the “coordination” of concentration camps. He was responsible for every aspect, from the work to the transport. His coldness and cruelty were a thing of legend. In 1960, he was captured and brought to Israel. He was tried for war crimes and executed. Before his trial, he was interrogated by the military prosecutor Avner Less. The film is based on the transcripts of these interviews.
Thomas Kreschnann and Troy Garity (who play Eichmann and Less respectively) have pulled of quite a feat. Although flashbacks of Eichmann’s past and Less’s life outside the interrogation chamber play an important part, the two men’s dialogues constitute the backbone of the film and never once lose their sense of purpose…
As to the subject matter, what makes this film fresh to my eyes is that apart from showing the horrors of the Nazi regime, the film also tries to understand what went on in the minds of its administrators. And that, in my view, is a very good question indeed.
Take the case of Eichman. Before us we have a seemingly average army officer. Loving father of four. Womaniser with several mistresses. The single handed organizer of the death camps that took the lives of millions of human beings. And of course the defense is as easy to predict as the events are easy to research : “I was following orders.” “I was not responsible.” What we find out here, along with Avner Less, is how this defense was born. And how it is actually possible for the defendant to believe it in a way… I do not want to give away more of the film than I can help but let me put it this way. If you ever read something, no matter how brief, about the Nazi regime – or dictatorships anywhere – and wondered “what the hell they were thinking”, this a very good stab and an answer. Let me also add that the conclusion reached is hair-raisingly human…