Before the film Schindler’s List or the miniseries Holocaust, Nelly Sachs used poetry to bear witness to the Holocaust. Sachs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, so literate viewers might expect to hear readings of her verse in a documentary exploring poetry that addresses the Holocaust. Yet, in this case, they do not. Filmmaker Richard Kroehling takes a much more personal and subjective approach to the subject. Sometimes that leads to powerful moments, but other times it clouds the film’s focus. Without question, Kroehling incorporates some haunting verse that illuminates the incomprehensible in After: Poetry Destroys Silence, which opens Friday in New York.
To its credit, After has one standout moment that will truly make your hair stand on end. It comes when poet and actor Geza Rohrig (best known for Son of Saul) reads his poem “Aushwitz,” which includes a line recalling German tourists speaking the words “never,” but also “again.” Its resonance for this time of skyrocketing hatred directed at Jews is absolutely off the charts.
On the other hand, After includes rather confusing hybrid dramatic vignettes starring Melissa Leo and Bo Corre, who seem to also be exploring their tragic family history. These add confusion rather than clarity. Indeed, Kroehling periodically widens the film field of reference to discuss poetic responses to other forms of trauma. Arguably, a subject with the weighty significance of the Holocaust can carry the film on its own, without more “contemporary” reference points.
Still, there are memorable passages, like an archival recording of Paul Celan reading “Todesfuge,” in a dry ghostly voice that sounds reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s appropriately deathly tones on his classic reading of “The Waste Land.”
Celan is also a poetic many viewers will be waiting to hear. Maybe Kroehling could have used an editorial consultant, because many patrons will surely come in expecting excerpts from Sachs (and perhaps also Hannah Senesh’s “Blessed is the Match,” even though it is not about the Holocaust, per se).
Instead, After is a mixed bag, but there are eerily striking moments—from great poets. Recommended despite some limitations, After opens this Friday (11/1) in New York at the Cinema Village.