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Shoah Movie Review

Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann. It’s unquestionably a deeply powerful movie, but also one with its fair share of flaws.

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“If you lie enough, you believe your own lies“

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Shoah is one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all time with some even calling it the best documentary ever made. I wouldn’t go that far personally, but I still have to commend the movie for being so epic in scope and so emotionally powerful, draining even as it is progressively more bleak and horrendous to watch, which was the director’s intention obviously, and he wildly succeeded at transporting you back to the horrors of war, much more so than many live-action directors ever could.

The film is mostly concerned with four topics, which are basically the same: life and death in the ghettos and concentration camps of WWII. I would say that Treblinka probably got the biggest focus, but all camps and ghettos in the film are given their fair share of screen time obviously given the film’s excessive runtime. In meticulous, horrible detail, we are acquainted with everything that happened in these camps and, needless to say, it was very difficult to get through.

The movie’s biggest strength lies in its concept overall, which is giving the platform to real people from this event to speak to us – real Jewish survivors, Polish people, Germans etc. Each and every one of these people gives their own unique, authentic perspective and experience recollecting the war events, but the most painful ones were obviously coming from survivors and those who empathized with the Jews.

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Seeing sadness and tears in many of these people’s eyes was just heartbreaking, and so were the immense details of many committed atrocities in their testimonies. Never before or after could you see a more detailed, more raw and real look at WWII and in particular the genocide. The movie holds real power because of that as that is probably never going to be emulated equally well.

However, I’ve got some issues with this movie and I need to address them. Despite the lavish praise that the film received, it was criticized in Poland, and I have to admit rightfully so. Basically, there are extensive scenes here that take us on the streets of Polish rural places such as small towns and villages, and we get to see the interviewing of these people, and all are shown to be very anti-Semitic or at least not trustworthy of the Jews.

At first, I found those accounts of life with Jews interesting and truthful when it comes to their being more wealthy and better dressed than others, which is a stereotype that is still mostly true. However, later on I came to the realization that what I was watching was propaganda against the Poles as the director deliberately chose to interview only the rural people, thus making the entire movie very biased and frustratingly so.

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Shoah is also overlong. I wouldn’t say it’s boring, quite the contrary as watching it in a TV show format is very effective as it’s less emotionally draining and more palatable that way. It is overlong in a sense that the interviews should have been edited out, in particular the translations should have been simultaneous. Still, Shoah’s interviews are mostly amazing, some even incredibly emotional. The direction is mostly good and the cinematography is fantastic as the film depicts the most important parts of each place tremendously well with some very striking imagery at display.

Deeply emotional to the point of becoming draining on the viewer, Shoah is undeniably an immensely powerful work that is truly authentic in its interviews with real concentration camp survivors and witnesses. Some moments here are especially difficult to watch, specifically witnessing the deep sadness in the eyes of interviewees as they recollect their atrocious experiences. Shoah is also very well directed and shot, but it’s far from a perfect movie as evidenced by unrestrained editing and runtime as well as the director’s very biased, deliberately condemning portrayal of the Poles in particular.

My Rating – 4

You can get the Criterion Collection of Shoah on Amazon.