Nuit et brouillard (1955)

User Rating:

8.6/10   

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jean Cayrol (writer)

Release Date:

21 October 1960 (Finland)

Genre:

Documentary | Short | History | War

Plot:

The history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.

Plot Keywords:

Concentration Camp | Nazi | Death Camp | Poland | Violence

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Bouquet	...	Récitant / Narrator (uncredited)
Reinhard Heydrich	...	Himself (behind Hitler) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Heinrich Himmler	...	Himself (with Hitler) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (views parade) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Julius Streicher	...	Himself (makes speech) (archive footage) (uncredited)

Also Known As:

Night and Fog

Runtime:

32 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Brazil:18 | Iceland:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:M | Italy:T | Finland:K-16 | UK:15

Company:

Argos Films

Trivia:

The film was commissioned by the Comite d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale - a government commission assigned the tasks of assembling documentary material on and of launching historical inquiries and studies in the period of the French Occupation - and the Reseau de Souvenir, an association devoted to the memory of those who died in the camps.

Quotes:

Récitant/Narrator: Those of us who pretend to believe that all this happened at a certain time and in a certain place, and those who refuse to see, who do not hear the cry to the end of time.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Grey Zone (2001)

More difficult to view than any other film I've ever watched.

I consider myself to have a fairly strong stomach- I've seen the results of traffic accidents and violent crimes, and like anyone else I have seen (via the TV) the horrors of war. But I was just totally unprepared for this. It was thirty harrowing minutes of a sight-seeing tour of hell.

It was so difficult for me to sit through that I was tempted to shut the DVD player off three times, but I told myself, "No, this is important. It has to be seen, if only as a reminder of what can happen when an inhuman world-view is fused to state-of-the-art technology." The Holocaust was far more (and worse) than simple mass-killing, awful as that is. It was a business decision, coolly and scientifically calculated, to destroy millions of innocents while reaping a profit from them- in death as well as in life.

The sight of the starved, broken bodies, the ghastly scenes taken in the medical labs in the death camps, the sight of little children being led by the hand to their last train ride. It is all so monstrous as to be indescribable.

I am glad I watched it. But I do not think that I'll be watching it ever again, and I give it a 10. It affected me that deeply.