Shoah (1985)

The critic praises Shoah as a monumental film that captures the enormity of the Holocaust through its length and unhurried approach, noting how it makes the absence and silence speak volumes, though some passages could be trimmed. They highlight Lanzmann's focus on faces, locations, and the perpetual present of the horror.

The critic affirms Shoah as a great and singular movie whose power lies in its contemplation of landscapes, faces, and voices rather than conventional cinematic technique. He singles out its ability to compel viewers to imagine the unimaginable through recordings of absence and presence.

Thomas calls Shoah a great work of art and a monument against forgetting, praising Lanzmann's method of making the horror accessible and comprehensible through interviews and present-day filming of the sites without archival footage.

The critic praises Lanzmann's innovative approach of using only contemporary testimonies and locations without archive footage to convey the Holocaust's enormity, highlighting the power of survivor and witness interviews and the film's dispassionate yet relentless accumulation of evidence.

The critic praises Shoah as one of the most life-affirming works of art ever produced for the cinema, despite cataloging horrifying events. They single out Lanzmann's use of survivor testimonies and present-day footage of camp sites and countrysides, rather than archival material, to convey the enduring impact of the Holocaust.

The critic praises the film's extraordinary accomplishment as an oral history of the Holocaust unlike any other, relying on contemporary testimony rather than archival footage to bring the past back with devastating clarity. It highlights the persistent, informed interviewing and the way the film makes the unspeakable spoken through survivors' accounts.

Denby finds the re-release of Shoah still powerful and illuminating, especially in light of new historical context from Snyder's book, praising its method of bringing the past into the present through testimony and location filming.

The critic notes doubts about Lanzmann's interviewing methods and the film's historical reliability but concludes that Shoah remains immensely powerful and moving. The landscape footage around the former camps, evoking lingering scars and hidden secrets, is singled out as especially impactful.