Customer Ratings & Reviews

“Night and Fog” is an important film on the tragic and horrific events which happened behind the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp during its peak of operation in the early 1940’s. The film is unflinching, showing real archived footage of prisoner disposal, amongst many other depressing topics. The film gets straight to the point—it doesn’t waste any time on back story of the Second World War. It’s quite short, just 32 minutes in total run time, but the images you see here will haunt you forever. While the film is important, this release is very unimpressive overall (considering that it’s from the Criterion Collection) and not worth the $28.00 price tag. There are only three supplemental features on this release—an audio interview with the filmmaker, Alain Resnais (boring); an interview with filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (somewhat better, but still boring); and, an agonizingly slow and forgettable, 90-minute French documentary, called “Face aux fantomes”, which basically is just one French historian woman talking the whole time. It was so boring, I fell asleep three times. Overall, this release is not up to Criterion’s usual high bar of excellence. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive, evocative study of the Holocaust, I’d recommend “Shoah” over “Night and Fog”.