Film: Nuit et Brouillard
Director: Alain Resnais
Country: France
Released: May 1956
Runtime: 32 minutes
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Argos
Influenced: Chris Marker, Oliver Stone, Michel Haneke, Claudia Llosa, Agnès Varda, Joshua Oppenheimer
Alain Resnais' Nuit et Brouillard is a short film of both historical significance (one of the first to present graphic footage of the concentration camps, raising awareness of what was still a taboo subject at the time of its release) and technical innovation (a combination of archival footage, contemporary images, haunting soundtrack by Hanns Eisler and elegant script by poet Jean Cayrol). There's a sinister feel to the way Resnais splices pictures of the contemporary peaceful countryside with archival film of the Nazi war machine starting in Germany in 1933, and we see how that darkness still lurks in the landscape a decade or so later.
French actor Michel Bouquet narrates in a matter of fact way the tender process for building concentration camps and the different styles of watchtower. He says the film can’t possibly capture the endless fear that was felt by the captors, talking of the nocturnal spectacle that the Nazis were fond of, starting with Jews arriving on the train in the night and fog. Resnais' film has a clear sense of purpose, which is to record the horrors of the Holocaust before they can be forgotten. The film was released before the museums and memorials of our modern age, capturing chilling details like the orchestra that plays while Jews are marched to the ovens or to the quarry as slave labour. Some camps even had a zoo or greenhouse.
Personally, I'm glad the film is only half an hour long. The image of the man dying with his eyes wide open haunts me still. We’re also told how the big “chemical factories” sent samples of their toxic products (there’s footage of Bayer’s Evipan-Natrium) or bough a batch of prisoners for testing, treating them like guinea pigs. Some are castrated or burned with phosphorus and somehow some survived. We’re then shown the arrival of Himmler at a camp in 1942, where he would push for greater efficiency in the killing of Jews, overseeing the designs of crematoriums for that purpose. The image of the sea of women’s hair is truly shocking in its scale. At times I felt physically sick while rewatching this film to write this blog. And there’s worse to come – some of the images once seen, can’t be unseen.
Human hair turned into felt cloth, bones turned into soap, skin turned into art paper. We’re left to ask ourselves the question could these items still exist in the world, perhaps even in our own homes? And how ethical is our consumption generally? This isn’t just a film about a particular event or moment in time, it also raises universal questions about human blindness. At the end of the film, Resnais asks the pertinent question – if the SS prison guards of the camps declared in trials they’re not responsible for the mass killings of the Holocaust, then who is?
This is a transforming film that pushes us outside of our comfort zone and forces us to address man’s inhumanity to man. I would recommend watching another short French film – Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, launched in the exact same month and year (May 1956) – after Night & Fog to help lift your spirits. They’re both half an hour long and work well as companion pieces, as you'll likely be in search of some lightness and optimism after the haunting despair of Night & Fog.
Comments