Night Will Fall (2014)

As I watched this gut wrenching documentary, I found it hard to believe that there are people in the western world who think we should not take every means necessary to eradicate groups like ISIS. We have a holocaust unfolding before our very eyes on the internet and television, yet millions of people are against taking action against these barbaric, ideologically driven monsters. Perhaps we have become so pampered by our luxurious lives that we can compartmentalize those actions as "someone else's problem" or taking place in a "place far from home". Maybe we are too cowardly to make personal sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. Maybe we have become too optimistic, thinking that there is good in all people. As someone who has faced these "people" face to face, I can assure you that there is nothing redeeming about these demons. They would rape your infant daughter right in front of you, decapitate her and laugh in your face with absolutely no remorse. If we allow this enemy to strengthen, our society has about 5-7 years left.

This is a miraculous film...miraculous in that it exists, but more than even that; miraculous in it's unadulterated depiction of the worst of humanity in wartime.The dichotomy of war is depicted here. In Bergen-Belsen we see life struggling to be what life is and just feet away from piles of death as the corps were strewn. How can these two depictions of life occur so physically close? Only in the worst of war can such atrocities be present, if diversely repugnant. See this film and only trust your moral center as everything must be judged by inherent good.The old adage that we are doomed to repeat history unless we learn from it comes to heart. Right now we have ISIS, a modern day Nazi style faction. Can we sit idly by and let evil fester. This film makes it clear that the cost will only exponentially multiply if good men sit by and do nothing. See this, weep for those lost at the hands of evil in the past, and renew your resolve that we must stand for good at this later day time where evil once more rears a powerful head.

A fascinating film. A horrifying film. To be clear this is not the documentary about SS concentration camps that was left unfinished, and suppressed after the war. That film can be seen elsewhere. To be clear, having seen that film, this documentary does leave out just a few key elements. The original film goes out of it's way to say these camps were not only for Jews and lists all the nationalities and religions that came to be killed here. So to say that film is about the Holocaust is not entirely true and is specifically not the point of the original film.What this film does is set the discovery of the camps and the aftermath into context both large--the governments involved, and small--the military camera crews and even some camp survivors who are seen both now and in the vintage footage. A real feat to find these people so many years later.Sure you may think you've seen this all before, both in fiction films and in various documentary ones. But this still packs a punch, perhaps even more so since you will think you already know all there is to know. I've spent a lot of my life studying WW2 and I was still blown away by this film. I'm also a Hitchcock fan, and his name is being used to "sell" this film and the restoration and completion of the original documentary.A point made in this excellent film is that the intention was to make a documentary that was a warning that unless what happened in Germany is seen and understood that 'night will fall' again and these type of large scale inhumanity will re-occur. Of course you can argue that does in fact happen.This film shows footage not used in the original documentary and is as much about those who made the film as it is about everything else. Interestingly it talks about Hitchcock's input to help make the film convincing. The horrors of reality being so unreal that they might seem created for effect. You can also see in some of the dead faces some dead faces that will appear in Hitchcock's own fiction films after this one.This film also contrasts the film which was suppressed with the film that did get finished and released--that version being supervised by Billy Wilder. The makers of this film obviously preferring Hitchcock's version.And fans of both great directors will see their hand in how they shaped material shot by others. The camp footage was shot by army camera men without a director being there.The graphic concentration camp footage is very graphic but focuses on the horrible expressions on the faces of the dead that is what makes it overwhelming and gripping.Very little music is used, the voice over work is first rate as is haunting sound effects work. Part of what Night Will Fall does, by being a behind the scenes making of film is help to show just how real and unstaged these horrors of war were. It is hard to watch this film and come away thinking somehow all this was made up just for the sake of the Jews. In fact its impossible to believe that after you see this film.Once more let me say this is not the so called Hitchcock film, though portions of that are shown within this film. That you have to seek out elsewhere and see for what it is, it has different things to show and say. This is almost an extended preview and background that helps viewing that film.

'German Concentration Camp Factual Survey' was a powerful Holocaust documentary that spent decades in limbo for very dubious reasons. Filmed at the end of World War II, it was only recently completed in a full-length restoration by London's Imperial War Museum. The project has long been part of forgotten movie history, partly because directing legends Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder were both involved in creating it.The completed documentary adds Brett Ratner and Stephen Frears as producers. The director is André Singer, whose own production credits include multiple Werner Herzog projects and 'The Act of Killing'.In the spring of 1945, with victory in sight, Allied forces encountered the full horror of the Nazi concentration camps as gained more and more ground. The liberation of slave labor and extermination camps including Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald were recorded by traumatized military film crews from the UK, the US and Russia. The horrifying images they collected of corpses and mass graves shocked the world.Under the command of British director Sidney Bernstein, the footage was shipped back to London as raw material for a film designed to inform about the cruelty of the Nazi regime, especially among ordinary Germans who still claimed ignorance of mass murder next door. Bernstein assembled a team including writer and future government minister Richard Crossman. Hitchcock also took a break from his Hollywood career to offer suggestions on style of the film. Billy Wilder edited some of the footage into a 22-minute newsreel-style short for U.S. audiences, called 'Death Mills'. But by the fall of 1945, as the political situation changed in the eyes of the British government, Bernstein's work-in-progress was quietly shelved by the UK government. Though clips from Bernstein's incomplete documentary were permitted to be shown during the Nuremberg trials, it remained unfinished for almost 70 years.The documentation 'Night Will Fall' fills in the back story of the film, from its battlefield origins to its restoration process. Singer and his team blend archive footage and contemporary interviews with elderly military veterans, members of the original film crews, historians and Holocaust survivors, including Branko Lustig, producer of Schindler's List. Wilder appears briefly in library clips. Hitchcock makes does his to be expected cameo. The documentary was already part of Berlinales' 2014 "Work in progress" - section.As an important historical and educational document, 'Night Will Fall' is unquestionably a must see. A little more investigation into the backstage machinations that forced the shelving of the original footage would also have been welcome but nevertheless the film is filled with shocking truth that always is in danger to be ignored.