Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Shoah" is a French documentary film from over 30 years ago that runs for over 9.5 hours. It consists of 2 parts that are both longer than 4.5 hours. The writer and director is French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, which is why a lot of the film is in French. But there are parts in English, German, Hebrew, Polish... as well, so to full understand this movie, you will 99% need subtitles. The main problem for me was the runtime. It would have been okay if this was a series maybe consisting of 10 episodes, but in terms of a film, it should be possible to watch it during one viewing and this is hardly the case here.My criticism has little to do with the contents. The reports of the witnesses from both sides are informative and intriguing, even if there is nothing really in here that I have not seen or heard in other documentaries yet. Then again, these documentaries were made considerably later for the most part, so "Shoah" is a bit of an achievement also in terms of its time. It is mostly memorable because there is no archive footage used from concentration camps etc. used. It is basically all interviews. I am not sure if I like this though. If they show trains today riding there, then why not show trains with prisoners from back then. As a whole, I personally do not have a lot of interest in watching these over 10 hours again. Way too long for its own good and the runtime definitely hurts the viewer's perception and focus. Thumbs down.

simon-page-1 I have just recently watched this film in two parts, over two weeks. Yes, it is long. So what? I find it unbelievable that people can complain about the length of this film. Did you not know how long the film was before watching it? Oh dear.. did you get a 'bit bored' by the history of the mass extinction of the Jews? Did you run out of popcorn? The whole point of the film is to document the horror and also the complicity of others, not just the Nazis. The slow pace of the film gives us time to reflect on the misery and horror. The cold bleakness of the Polish landscape and the timeless quality only enhances and evokes feelings of depression and misery. The film has had a profound effect on me. It has made me angry and sad. It has made me want to tell other people. It is doing it's job, and will continue to do so as long as it exists and people watch it.

vernetto despite my deep interest in the Shoah, I could watch only part of the movie. I was too disgusted by the morbidity by which the interviewer (the director himself) ask the most minute, excruciating, terrible details to the survivors, like "which members of your family died? how did you recognize their corpse when you dug out their bodies from the common graves?". And the interviewee eyes are filled with tears, and the camera steady on close up to show well his expression of pain. I found all this too filthy, this is voyeurism, it inflicts too much pain in those poor people, without bringing any benefit from an historical perspective. I bet that most interviewees had nightmares for weeks after these kind of interviews. And the movie is boring and technically very elementary.

holopone Shoah is in many ways the mother of all insightful films about the Holocaust. Instead of relying on the usual images, Lanzman's film takes us to the people who suffered, survived, and to those who made the Holocaust possible. It is all too easily forgotten that ordinary people, often believing that they were doing the right thing, contributed to the greatest act of systematic murder ever recorded. This film reminds us of that. In a time when Nazis are once again big business in the main stream, it is more important than ever to introduce young audiences to the reality of the Holocaust. Shoah is probably the best introduction to the topic ever made. This is one of those rare films that documents history without burying or sensationalizing it. It is a great film because it leaves us with questions that we still have to face.