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Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since though only agreed to be interviewed by audio). His style of interviewing by asking for the most minute details is effective at adding up these details to give a horrifying portrait of the events of Nazi genocide. He also shows, or rather lets some of his subjects themselves show, that the anti-Semitism that caused 6 million Jews to die in the Holocaust is still alive in well in many people that still live in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere. (official distributor synopsis)
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A very long, incredibly depressing spectacle based on authentic testimonies of people who survived genocide. I evaluate it with the distance of several years, but the Shoah is a work that, when someone decides to watch it, it will stick to them forever in their memory. An extremely emotional matter. Overall impression: 100%.
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Once a serious topic is given to something and it runs for nine hours, it's somehow automatically considered a great film. I don't think so. This isn't a work for everyone, that's clear, but I don't think it's exceptional either in how it presents the massacre of Jews. The film didn't strike me as powerful; on the contrary, it felt tiresome and dull, with the forced answers rather cruel. Why, you ask? To make a film or to leave a testimony? I'm not sure.
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Photo © IFC Films
![Shoah - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/163/655/163655165_f001f1.jpg)
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