Nuit et brouillard

The inconceivable past of Auschwitz and Dachau is becoming more and more remote for the younger generation. However, in 1955, the French director Alain Resnais made an unforgettable documentary that has not lost any of its expressiveness.
Resnais leads us to the extermination camps of WW II as post-war tourists and shows us the remainders of the watchtowers and crematoria. It is springtime, the environment is green, the atmosphere is peaceful.
Then: the confrontation with the horrible facts of war. In shocking black and white images we see the rows of naked prisoners waiting in front of the ovens. The despair in the staring eyes, the innumerable skeletons, suddenly all becomes real.
The calm voice of Jean Cayrol commentates on the pictures. He points out to the audience that some people will always deny this catastrophe and that others will find hope in the assumption that it will never happen again. Hanns Eisler's music has a dissociating effect and, like the commentary, provides the opportunity to think things over.

Nuit et brouillard is a personal documentary about events that are so inhuman that they must never be made acceptable. Due to its technical qualities, like the way in which the archive images and the 1955 images have been intertwined, this documentary is a piercing account of a black page in history.