Noche y Niebla

Ver "Noche y Niebla" fue una experiencia bastante fuerte, fue muy incomodo de ver y creo que no puedo ser completamente objetivo al criticarla ya que el tema se siente propio y personal, cosa que no me pasa con cualquier imagen de la Shoah. Llevo viendo esas imágenes terribles desde que voy en primaria, conozco sobrevivientes y he escuchado historias de su experiencia, con toda esa información me he echo mas fuerte y a veces indiferente en cuestiones del tema, pero "Nuit et brouillard" me afectó y creo que en parte fueron esas tomas largas, donde recorre estos cuartos donde sucedían realmente las cosas y ahora tienen pasto, flores y parecen fabricas comunes. Estos recorridos me hacen sentir que estoy en una especie de tren guiado por Resnais del que no es fácil bajarse.

La estructura y la narración te meten en un estado de horror y de reflexión. El valor de las imágenes no aumenta en cuanto a la violencia, si no a lo que no se enseña, lo que no se dice. Las montañas de cepillos y de pelo revelan todo lo innombrable.

 La combinación de material de archivo en blanco y negro con las tomas que produce Alain en color 

The present and the past coexist, but the past shouldn't be in flashback. 
Alain Resnais 

"Nine million dead haunt the countryside
Who among us keeps watch from this strange watchtower
To warn of the arrival of our new executioners?
Are their faces really different from our own?"

Multiple meanings can be attached to the title of Alain Resnais' brilliant landmark Holocaust documentary, Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard). Taken literally, the "night" refers to the darkness that the deportees arrive in, but this also refers to the certain death of the condemned to or to the secrecy of the horrors. The "fog" implies ambiguity—a cloak that makes the ultimate fate of some deportees uncertain and allows the world to deny responsibility for what happened during the Holocaust by claiming ignorance. 

The 30-minute Night and Fog begs to be viewed, but once seen, the images (coupled with the provocative narration) haunt for a lifetime. I showed it to my high school classes over the years, and it provided an impact that reading about the Holocaust could never supply. The subject must be handled with care at this young age (or any age, for that matter), and they must be prepared for the uncensored brutality that occurs during the final minutes. Take note: Night and Fog can cause nightmares.

If you've visited one of the concentration camps or the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. or Jerusalem, you should be equipped to handle the horror. If you've seen Mein Kampf, The Sorrow and the Pity, Schindler's List, or Sophie's Choice, consider that these serve as "gentle" narrative background information to help you survive the impact of Resnais' work. These other cinematic narratives are like complex, meandering novels that contrast with the poetry of Night and Fog. 

The film seductively begins very peacefully—lyrically surveying a pastoral countryside nearly 10 years after the end of World War II. But this is no ordinary countryside—we are in Poland following the railroad tracks that lead directly into Auschwitz. Michel Bouquet matter-of-factly narrates in French as the English subtitles ask questions like "What horrors have these silent tracks witnessed?" Soon enough the greens and browns of the idyllic countryside transition to black-and-white artistic collages of archive footage we can thank the Germans for. 

Some of these scenes have been seen in other documentaries about the Holocaust, but (except for the scenes taken from Triumph of the Will) they are used for the first time in Night and Fog. Continually the relentless narrator explains historical facts that have been gleaned from meticulously kept German records. 

Scenes of deportees with stars of David embossed on their coats being herded onto the freight cars come as no surprise, but images of mountains of womens' hair, soap manufactured from the prisoners' fat, disfigured prisoners who were subjects of unbelievable medical experiments, decapitated corpses, and pencil-thin skeletal bodies being bulldozed and dumped into mass graves convince us that the Holocaust was a true hell on earth—the definitive example of man's inhumanity to man. 

How do Holocaust apologists explain the gas chambers at Auschwitz with cement ceiling that has been partially chipped away by desperate fingernails attempting to claw their way out of their death trap? And what about those ovens and the charred remains of burnt bodies? And the thousands of starving survivors recovered when the Allies freed the camps?

Renais follows the brutal imagery with clips from the Nuhrenberg trials where the Nazi officials all claim they weren't responsible—that they were merely following orders. The question remains then—who is responsible? Before jumping to answer, examine the pangs of guilt that Resnais artfully inspires with screenwriter Jean Cayrol's provocative text:

". . . We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past,
As if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps.
We pretend it all happened only once at a given time and place,
We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us
And a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry."

It's quite plain to see why François Truffaut once called Night and Fog the greatest film ever made, especially considering its poetic impact. Holocaust films are often overrated, due to the weight of the subject matter, but when each new Holocaust project immediately recalls ingrained images from Resnais' film, it's a sure sign that his documentary stands as definitive—never to be duplicated or surpassed.




* Note: Night and Fog has been available through VHS presentation for several years. It eventually found its way to DVD release as a short among other shorts on Short Cinema Journal 1:3, but now has been granted the Criterion touch. Despite its essentially bare bones DVD features, the Criterion Collection edition contains by far the clearest images, the best translation, and the most readable subtitles. It also includes a brief interview with the director, where we learn about his battles with the French Censorship Commission and an amusing story about the compromise he makes to get past them.