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A Film Unfinished
R0 - America - Oscilloscope Laboratories Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (21st April 2011). |
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The Film
 In 1942 the Nazis produced a film documenting the lives and conditions of the approximately half-million Jewish inhabitants inside the infamous Warsaw Ghetto. Titled simply “Das Ghetto” (or “Ghetto”) and running just shy of 60 minutes, it was the longest propaganda piece filmed within the walls of Warsaw. It was never released, never fully “finished”, and for decades, sat in a damp German bunker locked away from the world. Uncovered year’s later, historians and Holocaust researchers used the film as a resource, as though it were complete truth – an accurate documentation of what happened during the final months before the Ghetto was emptied, and its prisoners were sent to the death camps and the gas chambers. But the truth is, “Das Ghetto” is a complete and total lie. A fabrication, designed for a purpose that is unclear, but considering what is known about the propaganda arm of the Third Reich, was most certainly of heinous intentions. Oscilloscope Laboratories’ DVD release of “A Film Unfinished” includes the uncut, “R-rated” version of first-time writer/director Yael Hersonski’s daring investigation into the production of “Das Ghetto” plus a smattering of brief, but informative, supplements including a similarly themed short documentary by filmmaker Billy Wilder called “Death Mills” (1945), which features some of the first images ever recorded on motion picture film documenting the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. “A Film Unfinished” was nominated for the San Diego Film Critic Society Award (Best Documentary), The Satellite Award (Best Documentary), and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, where it also won the Foreign Documentary Award in Editing. With “A Film Unfinished”, Hersonski – who’s previous work in editing Israeli television documentaries has been acclaimed – unleashes a fascinating investigation into the creation of “Das Ghetto”: why it was filmed, how it was filmed, and horrors of the images captured. Her film is made up of interviews with various Survivors as they watch “Ghetto” in a screening room while offering chilling and vivid (if occasionally plain, descriptive) commentary, juxtaposed with the often graphic and haunting minutes for the original Nazi-produced “Ghetto”. To quote scholar Michael Berenbaum from the special features on this DVD, “for me, as a viewer, [watching “A Film Unfinished”] was an intense and difficult experience. Difficult, but important.” Hersonski’s documentary isn’t perfect – some of her interviewees are getting on in years and simply narrate what happens on screen – but it is, even with that minor if distracting flaw, something that is worthy of attention. Be warned, watching “A Film Unfinished” is a truly draining and emotional experience, but it’s also incredibly interesting on an intellectual level. The Nazis, who documented their evil so, so well, were at times unflinching in their depiction of life inside the ghetto. A woman is ruthlessly beaten on the streets, while another wonders aimlessly and dead-eyed while carrying her child. The brutal, true-life images of impoverished Jews being beaten, shamed and ridiculed stand against apparently staged sequences of the Jewish elite enjoying the finer things, and partying in elegant style. The Nazi’s goal with “Das Ghetto” isn’t quite clear, and its possible – even probable – that we’ll never really know what their game was. But, from the scenes recorded and as assembled, even in an unfinished state, it’s obvious that there was something wicked at hand with this disturbing encapsulation of filmic propaganda. Hersonski’s own film began life when she unearthed a “missing reel” from “Das Ghetto”. The reel was an important, unnerving slice of celluloid that showed much of the elaborate staging and trickery done by the Nazis, designed to present fiction as fact. And so the final third of the Hersonski’s documentary-about-a-documentary almost exclusively looks at the manufacturing of truth through film – the hidden cameramen packed between the crowds on the streets of Warsaw, the reframing and reshooting of scenes as though to perfect a product, and the secret ills of hiring actors to represent the well-to-do Jews seen living in luxury and meeting with Adam Czerniaków, the Jewish elder and highest member of the Judenrat – the Jewish council – who oversaw the policing of his own people within the confines of the Ghetto. Czerniaków kept a number of diaries chronicling his time as the highest member of the council, and the evils that the Nazi’s forced him to enact. A number of readings from these journals act as a further framework for Hersonski’s documentary, taking a sad turn when Czerniaków finally realizes that he’s been nothing but a pawn and wonders what exactly the Nazi’s are up to with the mysterious film they’ve been shooting for months. A short time later, just before the Ghetto was destroyed and its inhabitants shipped off to face the far greater horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution, Czerniaków would commit suicide. “A Film Unfinished” is a more than fitting title, as neither “Das Ghetto” nor Hersonski’s own production end with a total sense of closure. Much of the answers one might have while watching “Unfinished” still go unanswered by the time the credits roll, and for that, the film is a little bit of a let down. But, then again, those looking for a rational explanation of the terrible atrocities committed during The Holocaust really ought not look to the Nazi’s or the actions of Adolf Hitler, because what the Nazis and Hitler did were anything but coherent or based on logic and reason. Not sane logic anyway. “A Film Unfinished” is a devastatingly powerful documentary and it deserves – no, demands – to be seen. Just, realize what you’re in for before sitting down to watch it. This is not a film to be taken lightly.
Video
Oscilloscope’s 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer offers an image that looks exactly how you’d expect a documentary about a film shot in the early 1940s to. The interviews and new projection room intercuts are sourced from crisp HD video, and look fine (although appear a bit dark due to the fact that they were shot in blackened theaters lit only by the light from a film projector). The older parts of “A Film Unfinished” however – the original “Das Ghetto” footage – is in rough, rough shape, like it’s been sitting in a German bunker for decades upon decades… which it has. The quality of the ghetto footage, which is almost always pillar-boxed at 1.37:1 and in black-and-white (some scenes are sepia tinted and seem to have an even narrower, perhaps 1.19:1, aspect ratio), varies from scene to scene. The opening moments pulsate with debris, massive flaring, contrast fluctuations and huge damage marks. Almost immediately following these scenes is a slow pan over a street in the Warsaw Ghetto, which is essentially spotless; looking like the day it was shot, and could actually even be considered detailed. The film continues on in this fashion till the end, sometimes looking decent, and other times not. “A Film Unfinished” is inconsistent, constantly ugly (not just in the quality of the print; the images themselves are often awful and unsettling) but probably a true reflection of the worn film elements.
Audio
“A Film Unfinished” receives a serviceable but plain Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix. The film is primarily English dialogue and narration, but many portions are in German, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish (the film is subtitled in English during these scenes). Frustratingly though, the English subtitles for the foreign language sections aren’t defaulted to the “on” position and you must activate them via your remote or the menu before beginning the film. “Unfinished” sounds fine for a documentary of this nature; the film is often quiet, with many scenes playing against a minimal piano score by Yishai Adar. There’s nothing wrong with the mix… just not much to talk about either.
Extras
The supplements accompanying “A Film Unfinished” are disappointingly slim, with only three special features of note – two interviews and a rarely seen short documentary film shot by Billy Wilder for the US War Department. More detailed featurettes about the production of both “Das Ghetto” and “A Film Unfinished” would have been welcomed; the lack of an audio commentary is almost criminal. But, thankfully, the brief bonus features that are included on the DVD are of high quality. A PDF Study Guide for teachers and their students is also provided and must be downloaded from a DVD-ROM drive; a theatrical trailer for the film and bonus trailers from the Oscilloscope library are also included. All video based extras are encoded in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen unless otherwise noted. An interview (14 minutes 34 seconds) with author and film researcher Adrian Wood is informative. Wood, one of the world’s leading specialists in Holocaust film materials, is worth listening to. He discusses his role in the production of “A Film Unfinished” and the discovery of 35mm nitrate film materials from the original “Das Ghetto”. In another interview (3 minutes 36 seconds) scholar Michael Berenbaum discusses “A Film Unfinished” and the importance the documentary has as a new insight into the minds of Survivors, the Holocaust, and the Nazi propaganda machine. The piece is a bit short, but worthwhile. The most disturbing, but also intellectually interesting feature here is a rarely seen short film (1.33:1 full frame, 21 minutes 6 seconds) by legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder. “Death Mills”, a short subject documentary produced by Wilder for the US War Department and screened in post-war Germany (and then, eventually, the United States), offered the world some of the first recorded images from inside the concentration camps. As evidence of mass murder and torture, the film is harrowing. As an example of what Hollywood’s greatest directors were doing during (and shortly after) WWII in service to their country, it’s incredibly fascinating. “Death Mills” is sourced from a new telecine of archival 16mm elements, but note the unrestored print is in less than stellar shape and the audio is similarly aged. The PDF Study Guide requires a DVD-ROM drive. Insert “A Film Unfinished” into your computer – Mac or PC – and teachers can download educational materials for their students, which should help guide a lesson surrounding the documentary. And finally, under the tab marked “Oscilloscope Releases” one can find a theatrical trailer for “A Film Unfinished” (2 minutes 9 seconds), plus bonus trailers for: - “Flow” (2 minutes 17 seconds) - “The Garden” (2 minutes 24 seconds) - “Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country” (2 minutes 14 seconds)
Packaging
“A Film Unfinished” receives a DVD release from Oscilloscope Laboratories, packaged as spine number 25. Typical of the company’s often-elaborate packaging, the dual layered DVD-9 comes housed in a multi-paneled digipak made of 100% recycled materials. The eco-cardboard digipak includes an essay by Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University and author of “Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust” Annette Insdorf. The package is marked as Region 0 and should be playable around the globe, although note that the video content is encoded in NTSC format.
Overall
First-time director Yael Hersonski has created an interesting piece of filmmaking here, which takes a look at one certifiably creepy curiosity, crafted by the Nazi propaganda machine for a purpose that isn’t (and will probably never be) entirely clear. What’s so intriguing about this often horrific 88-minutes of celluloid though is the over-arching commentary on the distortion of reality through film. Oscilloscope’s DVD does the best it can with the given source – which is pretty ghastly at times – and offers a few decent extras. “A Film Unfinished” is a gripping documentary that needs to be seen.
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