With minimal budget, Boll tries to span a bow between our presence and the unbelievable past. It is not a precise documentary of history. It is a movie about dying in Auschwitz, how it came that Auschwitz is not only a name but a death symbol, and what children of today know about the backgrounds. In some ways it succeeds, in some ways it fails to fulfill its ambitions, with the succeeding part predominating.
First, school kids are asked about their knowledge of Hitler and the Jews and the Holocaust, and some do not know anything, or at least very little. Some of the older school kids of the second interview series are better informed.
Where the horror begins is in the fictive sceneries of the past, when a child mourns to its parents about its feet, while walking to certain death. Every father or mother have heard their child mourning like that during a long walk. But in this context it is simply unsettling.
Then, bringing the victims to their fate, is shown as a normal business process. Guards are bored, professional. Killing people on a daily base, like slaughtering cows or pigs. The victims obey, they don't know what comes. They think they are arrested, and so they are quiet and calm.
And then the gas chambers. We are watching naked people suffering death. At some point, Boll is afraid of his own courage and spares us from the full length of their suffering. That I see as a big mistake. Death by Cyclon-B is within 5 to 15 minutes.
However, we will also follow a basically uninteresting dialog between two officers, which is nearly as painful as the death scenes, because people are only numbers and not of more worth than insects. Problems with schedule and staff and holidays are discussed. There's a noise in the background, and later we learn what's the reason about. But the two officer's are so accustomed to this noise, they aren't realizing it.
There are some scenes of shooting small children, these scenes are not quite believable and are, of course, not explained. Shooting Babies in this scenery makes no sense, but, the whole scenery makes no sense at all. I would have abandoned these scenes, they are not made well.
Boll made a laconic comment about inhumanity and how we remember. No more, no less. He shows us, how much we tell our children about the backgrounds.
One of the girls is asked, why people participated in executing the Holocaust, and she answers, they were afraid of the others, or simply followers. Boll asks, how would you react in this situation (he means she and the others), and she answers, "exactly the same way". That alone was worth watching the movie.
P.S.: I know that most of the scenes and places aren't historically exact. The life and death of the Lager inhabitants is completely missing. The film doesn't show the real Auschwitz. The amount of people killed at once was much higher, etcetera. The movie itself isn't carefully prepared nor edited. But those aren't essential details. It's the meaning. In this case for real.
First, school kids are asked about their knowledge of Hitler and the Jews and the Holocaust, and some do not know anything, or at least very little. Some of the older school kids of the second interview series are better informed.
Where the horror begins is in the fictive sceneries of the past, when a child mourns to its parents about its feet, while walking to certain death. Every father or mother have heard their child mourning like that during a long walk. But in this context it is simply unsettling.
Then, bringing the victims to their fate, is shown as a normal business process. Guards are bored, professional. Killing people on a daily base, like slaughtering cows or pigs. The victims obey, they don't know what comes. They think they are arrested, and so they are quiet and calm.
And then the gas chambers. We are watching naked people suffering death. At some point, Boll is afraid of his own courage and spares us from the full length of their suffering. That I see as a big mistake. Death by Cyclon-B is within 5 to 15 minutes.
However, we will also follow a basically uninteresting dialog between two officers, which is nearly as painful as the death scenes, because people are only numbers and not of more worth than insects. Problems with schedule and staff and holidays are discussed. There's a noise in the background, and later we learn what's the reason about. But the two officer's are so accustomed to this noise, they aren't realizing it.
There are some scenes of shooting small children, these scenes are not quite believable and are, of course, not explained. Shooting Babies in this scenery makes no sense, but, the whole scenery makes no sense at all. I would have abandoned these scenes, they are not made well.
Boll made a laconic comment about inhumanity and how we remember. No more, no less. He shows us, how much we tell our children about the backgrounds.
One of the girls is asked, why people participated in executing the Holocaust, and she answers, they were afraid of the others, or simply followers. Boll asks, how would you react in this situation (he means she and the others), and she answers, "exactly the same way". That alone was worth watching the movie.
P.S.: I know that most of the scenes and places aren't historically exact. The life and death of the Lager inhabitants is completely missing. The film doesn't show the real Auschwitz. The amount of people killed at once was much higher, etcetera. The movie itself isn't carefully prepared nor edited. But those aren't essential details. It's the meaning. In this case for real.