Film

Night and Fog

Name: Night and Fog
Genre: Documentary, History
Released: 1956
Cast: Michel Bouquet, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler, Julius Streicher

This is not history reenacted but history refusing to fade: Alain Resnais walks the grass-grown ruins of Auschwitz in colour, then cuts to the black-and-white footage of what happened there. Jean Cayrol's narration is spare, furious, unbearably calm. Thirty-two minutes, no comfort offered. It's essential viewing, not entertainment — the film that first insisted no one look away.

TMDb rating

8.3

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