Nuit et Brouillard
Nuit et Brouillard, Alain Resnais’s 1956 film, should not be collecting dust. It is relevant and necessary.
A film we should remember and watch again and again - in times like these. A remarkable documentary, Nuit... takes us on a train ride into misery -- the abominable reality of the second world war.
Resnais does not want us to forget the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. With text by Jean Cayrol, the film is a reflection on the origins of evil, "People go on living their every day lives..." and the whole world’s responsibility for that evil, "I’m not responsible. I’m not responsible. I’m not responsible."
A black and white film and not easily accessed, the film should be required material for history classes of all level, everywhere on earth.
Images of people obligingly loading on to trains roll in the beginning. Images of the effects of the torture. Images of confusion, "What the hell is going on here?" Then the film is over.
The camps were liberated, but we viewers are responsible for what happens in this world. Our passivity has profound repercussions.
In the late 1930 and '40s, people saw those images in the papers and heard about it on the radio. Many were eating breakfast, on their way to work, at the barbershop, or the local brew house...the "highest of all is the commandant. He pretends to know nothing of the camp."
Resnais provides us with a conscience. "Are their faces really different from ours?"
Written by: Rachael K. LeValley
Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 6.00
Reader's Votes: 12
Added: 28-Oct-2002
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