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France · 2018-2018
1 seasons · Completed
4h 33m
Director Claude Lanzmann
Starring Claude Lanzmann, Paula Biren, Ruth Elias, Ada Lichtman
Genre Documentary
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Since 1999, Claude Lanzmann has made several films that could be considered satellites of Shoah, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. He has just completed a series of four new films, built around four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself unexpectedly and improbably alive after war’s end.
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The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
Their stories are as harrowing, complicated and rife with imponderables as any Lanzmann filmed. And together, collected in a form that is much less labyrinthine than “Shoah,” they represent an ideal introduction (and capstone) to Lanzmann’s project.
The approximately 270-minute running time becomes a hushed demand for the viewer to sit with historical cruelty and listen as its victims teach to the future, its effect a cumulative cry of warning for today.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
These four, like so many others, opened up to Claude Lanzmann, and the results speak eloquently for themselves.
The A.V. Club by Lawrence Garcia
Perhaps Four Sisters is best considered a parting gesture from Lanzmann, ensuring that, in his body of work at least, these four “sisters” should endure as more than just a footnote.
RogerEbert.com by Matt Zoller Seitz
The women are all compelling though never too-polished storytellers. Whether they succumb to the horror of what they're describing and start to cry or remain stoic throughout becomes part of the experience of hearing the tale.
By uniting these four interviews in particular, Claude Lanzmann emphasizes the impossibility of moral clarity in the unthinkable circumstances into which Germany’s invasion of Eastern Europe threw its Jewish population.
Film Journal International by Simi Horwitz
Their most potent commentary is often their silence, their wordless responses to those questions that are unanswerable. Their restraint and dignity are an emotional sucker punch.