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Month: January 2024

Night and Fog (1955)

Night and Fog (1955)

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[Note: The following review is of a non-Peary title; click here to read more.]

“Death makes his first pick. Another choice is made in the morning, in the night and fog.”

Synopsis:
Unflinching footage from WWII concentration camps is contrasted with peaceful scenes of the same spots years later.

Genres:

  • Alain Resnais Films
  • Documentary
  • French Films
  • Nazis
  • World War II

Review:
Thirty-two-year-old Alain Resnais directed this short documentary made ten years after Nazi concentration camps were liberated. It’s likely not included in Peary’s GFTFF simply due to its length (only 32 minutes long), given that it otherwise meets all criteria for a must-see film — not just for movie-lovers but for all of humanity. If you haven’t seen this film yet, stop and go do that now (it’s easily available on YouTube) — and then you will likely want to read more about its construction and reception. In doing so, I learned quite a few things, including the following:

  • Resnais made this film on the condition that someone who had actually experienced the Holocaust — Jean Cayrol — write the screenplay.
  • According to Wikipedia (drawing from a 2007 book on the film by Sylvia Lindeperg):

    “The film draws on several sources, including black-and-white still images from various archives, excerpts from older black-and-white films from French, Soviet, and Polish newsreels, footage shot by detainees of the Westerbork internment camp in the Netherlands, or by the Allies’ ‘clean-up’ operations, plus new color and black-and-white footage filmed in 1955 at concentration camps. Resnais filmed his color sequences in Eastmancolor rather than Agfacolor, using the footage to contrast the desolate tranquility of several concentration camps — Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Struthof, and Mauthausen — with the horrific events that occurred there during World War II, to muse on the diffusion of guilt, and to pose the question of responsibility.”

  • One particular still in the film — showing a French gendarme cap on a guard overlooking a camp — was obscured in earlier versions but restored for the DVD version.
  • According to IMDb’s trivia page:

    “The then Federal German government intervened successfully to prevent the film being shown at the Cannes Film Festival on the grounds that the festival’s regulations prevented any film being shown that would cause offense to any participating nation. Ironically, the director of the Berlin Film Festival lobbied hard for the film to be shown at his festival.”

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • An indescribably potent fusion of horrific footage and commentary

  • Jean Cayrol’s narration (read by Michel Bouquet)

Must See?
Yes; this short film should be seen by all humans.

Categories

  • Historically Relevant
  • Important Director

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

America America (1963)

America America (1963)

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“I believe that in America, I will be washed clean.”

Synopsis:
When a young Greek (Stathi Giallelis) in 1890s Turkey begins his journey towards Constantinople and then America, he encounters seemingly endless obstacles to success.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Elia Kazan Films
  • Immigrants and Immigration

Review:
Elia Kazan wrote and directed this highly personal film (based on his own book) about the obsessive determination of a young man striving toward America. Life for Stavros (Giallelis) and his family and village at the turn of the century in Turkey is rough, hard-scrabble, and marked by ethnic strife and violence:


… making it easy to see why an alternative subsistence is so highly valued. Indeed, the initial portions of the film masterfully show the relentless determination needed to strive towards a better existence, with Stavros given all the family’s assets as he sets out to seek his fortunes. We get a strong sense of how urgent Stavros’s desire is to make a path for himself — and how quickly he’s taken advantage of again and again, first by a roving con-artist (Louis Antonio):

… and later by a prostitute (Joanna Frank) who has few choices herself for survival.

For better and for worse, Kazan used a mostly unprofessional cast to tell his story — and while Giallelis seems reasonably well-cast in the lead role, his lack of range and one dominant expression of stoic determination ultimately becomes wearying over the three-hour run-time.

As a notable contrast, a young man he meets on a mountain road early in the film (Gregory Rozakis) — and who plays a pivotal role later on — engenders much more pathos.

Also distracting is the obvious dubbing throughout the entire film, with Estelle Helmsley’s voice as Grandmother Topouzoglou particularly grating.

Meanwhile, the entire middle hour or so of this film — in which Stavros (Giallelis) is introduced to the daughter (Joanna Frank) of a wealthy merchant (Paul Mann) who is incredibly eager to marry her off — extends the movie far beyond its ideal length and narrative thrust. While I understand that it’s meant to show the life of comfort, certainty, and male domination Stavros must deliberate upon and possibly reject as he continues his impulse towards America, there isn’t enough dramatic action to warrant the time or emotional energy spent on this section.

Regardless of its flaws, however, film fanatics will likely want to check this unique film out once simply for its historical relevance.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Fine period details and sets
  • Good use of location shooting in Turkey and Greece
  • Haskell Wexler’s cinematography
  • Manos Hadjidakis’s score

Must See?
No — though I went back and forth on my vote for this one, and it’s certainly worth a look for its historical significance as an intriguing outing by a master director. Selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in 2001 as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Links: