Night And Fog

The Age

Thursday August 14, 2008

Philippa Hawker

Night and Fog

Umbrella, 32 min, M

documentary, 1955

4/5

This landmark Alain Resnais documentary, made 10 years after the end of World War II, looks both forward and back: in the intense, measured space of half an hour, Night and Fog presents unforgettable images of the concentration camps and death camps of World War II, coupled with a sober, reflective challenge to the viewer about responsibility, memory, complicity, and the possibility that such a horror might not necessarily be confined to the past. Resnais and writer Jean Cayrol (a Mauthausen survivor) do not use the word "Holocaust" or refer specifically to Hitler's intention to systematically exterminate Jews, but what we see is a hauntingly, relentlessly particular account of how the machinery, mechanisms and structures were set up for just that purpose.

Resnais draws on various kinds of images, mostly in colour, shot at the empty camps, archival stills, newsreel images, and material filmed when the camps were liberated. In the Australian extras, academic Mark Baker provides a commentary that contextualises the images and the film's significance as a document of the Holocaust, and Berry Liberman's short film draws on the eloquent voices of survivors.

DVD extras include:

commentary, short film.