Directed by Alain Resnais • 1955 • France
Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, filmmaker Alain Resnais documented the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek in NIGHT AND FOG (NUIT ET BROUILLARD), one of the first cinematic reflections on the Holocaust. Juxtaposing the stillness of the abandoned camps’ empty buildings with haunting wartime footage, Resnais investigates humanity’s capacity for violence, and presents the devastating suggestion that such horrors could occur again.
Up Next in The Good War Revisited
-
Kanal
Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1957 • Poland
Starring Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Wienczyslaw Glinski“Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives,” announces a narrator, foretelling the tragedy that unfolds as a war-ravaged company of Home Army resistance fighters tries to...
-
The Cranes Are Flying
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov • 1957 • Soviet Union
Starring Tatiana Samoilova, Alexei Batalov, Vasily MerkuryevThis landmark film by the virtuosic Mikhail Kalatozov was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the international cinema community alike. It tells the story of ...
-
Fires on the Plain
Directed by Kon Ichikawa • 1959 • Japan
Starring Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa, Mickey CurtisAn agonizing portrait of desperate Japanese soldiers stranded in a strange land during World War II, Kon Ichikawa’s FIRES ON THE PLAIN is a compelling descent into psychological and physical oblivion. ...
