For its forthcoming Blu-ray treatment, The Criterion Collection sat down with filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence) to discuss one of the most impactful documentaries ever assembled: Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog, a truly unshakeable rumination on the idea of memory, how it could be altered or buried, and how the truth still lingers like a ghost on the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek in 1955.
In part of the conversation, now available online, Oppenheimer discusses his fascination with how Resnais’ documentary doesn’t ask some questions — unlike many documentaries — and at the same time seems devoid of answers. These questions that aren’t present, Oppenheimer states, “haunt the film almost as powerfully as the ones that are asked.” What the viewer is left with instead is contemplation of horrific, impactful imagery. However, one question it does hint at is why the Nazis filmed all of this.
Night and Fog hits Criterion Blu-ray on July 19th.