Alain Resnais’ half-hour examination of German concentration camps.

This is as shocking as you imagine it to be with the most graphic footage being (rightly) included so the atrocity of the Holocaust is never forgotten or downplayed.

But the film also examines the thinking behind the camps, whether it’s their commission, planning, construction, or maintenance. The camps were separate entities, including hospitals and jails (the irony isn’t lost), and, in some cases, a zoo and an orchestra. The guards lived on the grounds and even entertained friends (as depicted in The Zone of Interest).

The camps were basically death factories, with efficiency being a massive consideration. How could they kill as many people as possible, as systematically as possible? We also get to see the by-products of the bodies- cloth, hair and ash. The film also shows soap, a claim now treated as a wartime rumour rather than a factory product.

Night and Fog is the French for Nacht und Nebel, the 1941 decree under which prisoners were to vanish into the night and fog, with no record left behind.

Whilst this depicts the worst episode in human history, it’s beautifully made with a juxtaposition of archive footage and footage taken of the camps ten years later.

Essential viewing.

5 out of 5 stars