NIGHT AND FOG Movie Review

Nuit et Brouillard

In the case of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog—the existence of which constitutes proof for all time that the motion picture is a great and unique art form—the comparatively brief running time (30 minutes) must never be used to relegate the film to some arbitrary category of lesser importance than what we normally consider the “feature-length film” or “major motion picture.” They don't come any more major than Night and Fog. Created ten years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Night and Fog juxtaposes black-and-white archival footage of the camp—including scenes still rarely shown because of the staggering horror of the images—with fluid, full-color glimpses of Auschwitz ten years later: green and partially lush fields that each year grow to cover up a bit more of the history that lies there. Described by its director as a “warning siren” to the world, Night and Fog includes poetic and heartbreaking narration written by Jean Cayrol, who described it as “not only a film of memory, but also a film of great uneasiness.” Resnais would revisit this relationship between past and present in many of his greatest feature films, including Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad, and Providence, but the power and beauty of Night and Fog—which François Truffaut called the greatest film of all time—would remain unparalleled.

NEXT STOP … Birthplace, Shoah, Hiroshima Mon Amour, The Sorrow and the Pity

1955 30m/B FR D: Alain Resnais; W: Jean Cayrol; C: Ghislan Cloquet, Sacha Vierny; M: Hanns Eisler. VHS HMV, IHF, HMV