"Ambulans" is, at 15 minutes, a very short film. I am afraid that most viewers will feel that these 15 minutes are far too long, yet feel that the film was inadequate in explanation. However, I cannot think of a more chilling scenario and would recommend that it be seen at least once. Although the credits and introduction are in Polish, there is no dialog to be translated. The only sounds that are present in the film are distant and eerie the sounds a Nazi soldier's boots walking across the cracked concrete, the sounds of a child's toy, the barking of another Nazi soldier's viscous dog. To accompany this, only for a short time in the middle of the film, is soft, dissonant music. The only consistent audible aspect that holds predominance throughout this film is silence screeching, blaring, and unmerciful.
The plot is simple: An ambulance drives into an enclosed area, surrounded by barbed fences and watch towers, and parks next to a small group of children, their schoolmaster, and a Nazi guard. Most of the film is spent on the faces and reactions of the children and schoolmaster. A Nazi soldier exits the vehicle, and with an eerie smile, surveys the group. He then signals to the driver to turn the ambulance off and opens the back, revealing a dark empty chamber. As the soldier prepares the vehicle for an unknown task, the school master begins to direct the children toward the vehicle (one child loses a shoe to the guard dog) and eventually line them up. The soldier connects a tube from the exhaust pipe to a similar looking pipe and the driver pours some liquid into a hole on the side of the ambulance. The children continue to play with each other and their simple toys. The soldier then removes a plate of some sort from a device inside the back chamber and closes the back doors. He signals the driver to start the engine and after a moment of pressing on the gas pedal, the driver returns the engine to idle. The dog becomes enthralled with on of the kids toys. We see the faces of the group as they watch the soldier reopen the back door. Black clouds of exhaust and smoke billow out, and the fate of the group becomes chillingly clear. We once again return to the schoolmaster's face, as he looks at the instrument of the children's, and his own, death. The dog is set free and one of the children winds and launches a spinning propeller. The dog chases it around one of the fences and snatches it up, just in time for the camera to catch the children entering the vehicle. Now watching from the inside of the chamber we see the remaining children board the ambulance, with increasing resistance (one is thrown in). Finally, the school master enters, calmly, and after a moment of watching a flock of birds, the doors are closed. As the camera zooms out, the ambulance drives slowly away.
The atmosphere is disconcerting. The viewer is continually aware of what is happening, yet he/she is also rejecting the clear outcome until the film abruptly stops. In some ways, this film reminds me of the short film, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, based Ambrose Bierce's famous short story. In others, it is far deeper and more sinister. As the innocent children you have been watching for the past 13 minutes are unknowingly led to their death, you cannot help but feel ill. The smiling soldier and the knowing schoolmaster haunt your mind, and, although the story is fiction, the entire essence of the Holocaust is depicted. What could be more chilling than innocent, naive children being murdered by something so ironic as an ambulance, and dying by the vehicle's very waste (exhaust) as it carries them away most likely to a mass grave site? How horrifically efficient and undeniably evil of them.
The plot is simple: An ambulance drives into an enclosed area, surrounded by barbed fences and watch towers, and parks next to a small group of children, their schoolmaster, and a Nazi guard. Most of the film is spent on the faces and reactions of the children and schoolmaster. A Nazi soldier exits the vehicle, and with an eerie smile, surveys the group. He then signals to the driver to turn the ambulance off and opens the back, revealing a dark empty chamber. As the soldier prepares the vehicle for an unknown task, the school master begins to direct the children toward the vehicle (one child loses a shoe to the guard dog) and eventually line them up. The soldier connects a tube from the exhaust pipe to a similar looking pipe and the driver pours some liquid into a hole on the side of the ambulance. The children continue to play with each other and their simple toys. The soldier then removes a plate of some sort from a device inside the back chamber and closes the back doors. He signals the driver to start the engine and after a moment of pressing on the gas pedal, the driver returns the engine to idle. The dog becomes enthralled with on of the kids toys. We see the faces of the group as they watch the soldier reopen the back door. Black clouds of exhaust and smoke billow out, and the fate of the group becomes chillingly clear. We once again return to the schoolmaster's face, as he looks at the instrument of the children's, and his own, death. The dog is set free and one of the children winds and launches a spinning propeller. The dog chases it around one of the fences and snatches it up, just in time for the camera to catch the children entering the vehicle. Now watching from the inside of the chamber we see the remaining children board the ambulance, with increasing resistance (one is thrown in). Finally, the school master enters, calmly, and after a moment of watching a flock of birds, the doors are closed. As the camera zooms out, the ambulance drives slowly away.
The atmosphere is disconcerting. The viewer is continually aware of what is happening, yet he/she is also rejecting the clear outcome until the film abruptly stops. In some ways, this film reminds me of the short film, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, based Ambrose Bierce's famous short story. In others, it is far deeper and more sinister. As the innocent children you have been watching for the past 13 minutes are unknowingly led to their death, you cannot help but feel ill. The smiling soldier and the knowing schoolmaster haunt your mind, and, although the story is fiction, the entire essence of the Holocaust is depicted. What could be more chilling than innocent, naive children being murdered by something so ironic as an ambulance, and dying by the vehicle's very waste (exhaust) as it carries them away most likely to a mass grave site? How horrifically efficient and undeniably evil of them.
