Shoah (1985) | Review

25 years after the initial release for a 10-hour film that took 12 years to make, Shoah returns with makes a silver anniversary release on a brand new set of 35mm prints. The film was unprecedented at its time of release and still stands alone, with not even the television Mini-Series compares. Shoah is culled from Claude Lanzmann’s 350 hours of interview footage with a variety of subjects all related to the Holocaust. Landsman’s subjects consist of “witnesses,” survivors, bystanders and perpetrators. The most powerful scenes of the film come both from heart-wrenching stories told by the survivors as well as scenes where Lanzmann confronts former Nazis at their current day jobs.

When it comes to long run-time docu films, perhaps the only film worth comparing this to is Peter Bogdonovich’s Runnin’ Down a Dream, four-and-a-half-hour Tom Petty documentary. Obviously the subject matter could not be different, but the point is these large subjects can rarely be encapsulated into a 90 minute run time. These are not films that fit into any kind of archetype created by the documentary film industry as they culminate into non-fiction films and it just so happens that they are unfortunately unique and without peer.

“Reviewing” Shoah is meaningless. Yes, it’s fantastic. It’s a classic. A must-see and a badge of honor for any cineaste for what it does with the medium and the format, as well as required viewing for the rest of the world considering this is the most comprehensive study of the Holocaust, including all literary examples. Landsman puts it all together here. The research is impeccable. He spent three and a half years only researching before conceiving the stages of production.

Lanzmann has a very nice touch with the subjects. He is somehow able to toe the line between pushing too hard on such sensitive subjects, and going to soft, and not getting the story. The result is very powerful and informative interviews. He also does right by the medium with his visuals. This is not just talking heads docu as he shoots them in locations that are important to their lives and stories, such on the river, in the boat that a Jew used to ferry Nazis in every day, singing to them in order to please them. His extensive shooting made sure that when the subjects tell a story about a specific place, Lanzmann gets to cut to his own footage of that location, such as Auschwitz. No archival footage is used and he shot all of this himself. Invest the time, this is not only a very important film, but it’s a masterpiece.

The importance of this film, and why it requires this re-release is described perfectly by Lanzmann himself in the press release: “Shoah is based entirely on the absence of traces. The Nazis wanted to destroy not only the Jews but their own destruction as well, i.e., the traces of the crime. This is the maddest attempt – to destroy history itself… I made a movie that literally starts from nothing, from places that are completely changed and yet persist…”

Rating 5 stars