Dir. Claude Lanzmann
In words and images lie the power of Shoah. Lanzmann is particularly careful, across the entire 9.5 hours of the film, to ensure that the right images are paired with the right words. You could say this of every director worth their salt, but in Shoah, where the subject matter of the Holocaust is so entirely deserving of respect and reverence, it is clear Lanzmann has purpose in how he presents the myriad of interviews, with the footage taken at burial sites, death camps, and local surrounding areas. These interviews include survivors of the death camps, locals who lived near the camps, Nazis who ran them, Polish church-goers, resistance fighters, and countless others. Lanzmann often allows interviews to be shown in full, with his questions asked in French being translated into Hebrew/Polish/German by his translator, then answered in full by the interviewee, and the process continues backwards until he understands.
Some have criticized this as padding the runtime of this epic length film unnecessarily, but even here there is purpose, as we see the faces of the interviewees as they convey their often horrific memories of the Holocaust. For some of the survivors, they smile, as to cope with the memories, others stoically continue before eventually breaking down - an emotion Lanzmann does not present until almost five hours into the film, so that we have as much information possible before responding to the horror - an encapsulation I believe of his goal with this film; we must bear witness and understand before reacting to the inhumanity. And when they do break down, you will as well. I have only reacted once as strongly to the Holocaust, in the penultimate episode of Band of Brothers, yet here, in an undramatised fashion, with actual survivors of absolute hell, it is impossibly powerful. No one should live through such an event ever again.
An image Lanzamann returns to throughout the entire film, and one that is well-known in the cultural memory of the Holocaust, is that of the train carriage. The train carriages transported any 'undesirables' the Nazis captured to death camps such as Treblinka or Auschwitz. Primarily Jewish people would be forced inside, with no food, no water, and left for dead until they reached their destination, where death would follow swiftly in the gas chambers, be they primitive in Treblinka, or 'sophisticated' in Auschwitz. We learn much about not only the chambers - their operation, the plight of the victims prior to and during gassing, the disposal of the bodies, but also of the carriages and how the Polish denizens of nearby towns to train tracks reacted to the horror taking place- giving water where they could, making symbols of death to warn unaware victims (e.g slicing the neck), yet being unable to help them escape for fear of death from Ukranian enforcers. Rebellion from the Jews was met with instant repercussion such as firing a rifle directly into carriages full of families.
Some of these denizens react more strongly than others, such as a train driver who is constantly haunted by his inability to have helped any of the Jews, beyond letting them know of their fate down the track. Lanzmann shoots images of moving trains in the present day (the late 70's/early 80's at time of filming), with long carriages of cargo, often on the same tracks that were used to transport the victims. What this simply achieves is a visualization for the viewer of the space occupied by all the victims as we hear information about their plight, but also a stark reminder of the number of victims. The shots often linger, as the train continues on and on and on, and it breaks you...these trains were often coming every day for months at a time. Lanzmann provides us with the tools to visualize the plight, using it in static shots also, during interviews such as the one pictured above in the second screenshot.
Early in the film we see a similar technique, as the mass grave (pictured above) is described through voice-over with a survivor, there is a long, long shot as the camera-operator walk down one length of the grave. You again realise that under here were bodies stacked like "sardines", with the bottom layer a mulch of biological matter due to the pressure of the weight - this is later mentioned again in the gas chambers themselves as we here a survivor tell of seeing children's skulls crushed by the victims clawing high to escape the gas, likely their parents included (this was possibly the image that hit me hardest in the film). As this shot continues and we picture this death, the camera turns on the shorter side, and returns, walking back the other side of the mass grave - and in your head you just think "Please, no more, I understand." But your discomfort can be nothing compared to the experience of the victims, those alive and dead. Lanzmann achieves in the simplest of cinematic terms something unprecedented that most dramatizations of the Holocaust fail to do, themselves often relying on the shock value of images, he achieves total empathy in the viewer and they are forced to use their imagination to picture the events, and there is nothing as personal in reaction as one's own images of the Holocaust - those which here stem from the actual facts of the onlookers, perpetrators, and victims of this historical event.
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