Review of Shoah (1985) by Bill M — 23 Sep 2015

I did it! It took me a long time to get through it, and every time I took a break from it, I felt a bit of shame -- that my life allows me respite from even the tiniest of distresses, that I have the freedom to eat any food I want whenever and however much I want, that I have warm shelter from the cold and cool comfort under the summer heat, I have every expectation of a long life ... yet I can't sit through 566 straight minutes that chronicle one of the single greatest evils the world has ever known.

Oddly, "Shoah" isn't a masterfully structured narrative -- not even its episodes are necessarily chronological. Although some subjects appear through various parts of the film, there is no through-line, no single subject to relate to through the film's length.

That said, this is a phenomenal record of history -- both of the holocaust and incidentally, life under Communism in late 70s / early 80s Eastern Europe where many of the film's interviews and extensive footage is shot. The quiet establishing shots of this dark history's locations -- 30 to 40 years later -- are at once haunting and beautiful. The subjects' stories are profoundly moving, but somehow not overwhelming -- they often speak coldly, decades of practice suppressing their emotions, many of them having suffered unimaginable guilt for their relatively good fortune.

"Shoah" is a film to be seen. Do it.