Some
will ask in partially good faith whether we really need another Holocaust
documentary. Oddly enough, those same people never seem to ask if we really
need another film about the environment. There have been a fair number released
after Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and
Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Many of them
were excellent, such as Inside Hana’s Suitcase, Night Will Fall, and The Labyrinth. Yet, the lack of will to combat the rise of anti-Semitic
violence in Europe suggests there is indeed a pressing need for more Holocaust
documentaries. While we can view them as part of the ongoing effort to prevent
future atrocities, the emotional impact of the Holocaust persists to this day
for the survivors giving testimony in British documentarian Claire Ferguson’s Destination Unknown (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
It
is hard to imagine how a survivor like Ed Mosberg could don a replica
concentration camp uniform to give educational programs, but his commitment is just
that extraordinary. In contrast, another survivor explains why he felt a
pressing need to have his camp tattoo removed, which we can all surely
understand. Nobody uses the term post-traumatic stress in this film and it is
probably for the best. Viewers could give probably give that armchair diagnosis
to all twelve survivors interviewed at length by producer Llion Roberts without
fear of contradiction, but what they continue to experience is deeper and more
profound than that. For instance, Mosberg’s wife can still hardly bring herself
to discuss those times with him, let alone anyone else.
There
are two historical figures whose shadows loom large over Destination. Although the Spielberg film and Thomas Keneally book
are never directly referenced, several survivors speak at length about their
very different encounters with Oskar Schindler and the savage camp commandant
Amon Goeth. Schindler’s List was
arguably the first film to take subject matter to a mass audience (nearly $100
million box office gross in the U.S. alone), but it has been few years since
1993. The world could probably use a refresher. In fact, Destination is rather newsworthy, because it features the first
on-camera interview with Schindler aide Mietek Pemper, Goeth’s reluctant secretary
(Ben Kingley’s composite character was partly based on him).
Perhaps
we should take encouragement from the fact Destination
hails from Europe, but it is probably needed more in countries like France and
Sweden than the UK. Nevertheless, it is executed with considerable sensitivity and
insight. In some ways, it acts as a corrective to more simplistic films that
present Holocaust narratives as a triumph over adversity. Some of survivors
steadfastly embrace life as a means of countering the darkness, but others have
never truly escaped the terror. Highly recommended for general audiences, Destination Unknown opens this Friday
(11/10) in New York, at the Cinema Village.
