It’s hard to be critical of a film that examines and discloses the intense human suffering of the holocaust — there is some intrinsic value in its creation and presentation. But alas, in the case of A Film Unfinished, it must be done.
The film, directed by Yael Hersonski, is devoted to a reel of footage that was shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. The reel was filmed with two others, though it was misplaced and only unearthed in 1998. The original two reels were simply titled as Das Ghetto and were the basis for much of the analysis of daily life in the Ghetto.
Hersonski presents a simple argument — the reels that have been available for analysis focused on the severe contrast between the poorest inhabitants of the Ghetto living in absolute squalor and the rich inhabitants who seemed to have many luxuries. The Nazi filmmakers who shot these reels show Jews enjoying tea in a well-furnished apartment or focus on a bounty of goods in a green grocers window, but will suddenly shift focus to a corpse lying on a busy sidewalk with passersby ignoring it all together.
The new reel demonstrates that a lot of these shots were staged purposefully by Goebbels’ propaganda machine, the reel provides evidence that actors were used or that a shot would be done over and over again to get the desired effect, which was to insinuate that the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto were crass, self-centered and cold-hearted. The Nazi filmmakers would even give explicit directions on how to behave to the inhabitants of the Ghetto.
Ultimately, though, the argument is superficial and is undeserved of the film’s 89-minute running time. Hersonski demonstrates shots were staged, but as mentioned previously, it’s a pretty simple concept to grasp. She provides example after example that become unnecessary and repetitious. She seems at odds with what to do with the revelatory footage and decides just to present it to the audience in a matter-of-fact fashion. Additionally, a recreation of the interrogation of one of the reel’s original camera operators, Willy Wist, seems contrived and a strange addition.
One of the film’s more poignant moments is when snippets of the film are shown to survivors of the ghetto and we get to see their reactions. It’s very moving, especially as one of these survivors remarks, “What if I see someone I know?”
And, as mentioned before, reminding people of the atrocious living conditions of the Warsaw Ghetto is never a bad thing. It’s just a shame that Hersonski couldn’t find some way to make it more compelling.