100
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Hersonski quietly and insistently unravels reality from "reality"; her commitment to archival authenticity is its own tribute to those no longer able to testify.
A Film Unfinished (שתיקת הארכיון)
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Germany,
- Israel
- 2010
- · 88m
Director
Yael Hersonski
Cast
Alexander Beyer,
Rüdiger Vogler
Genre
Documentary,
History
This powerful and devastating documentary reveals how the Nazis created propaganda about Jewish life during World War II. Though the Nazis made a famous propaganda film about contented and happy Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto, a recently recovered spool of film reveals the horrifying reality of ghetto life—and the way film can distort truth
Stream A Film Unfinished
What are critics saying?
100
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
A profoundly unnerving historical document.
100
Boston Globe by Ty Burr
It's the only film that exists of the Ghetto, and it's both revelatory and profoundly suspect.
90
Salon by Andrew O'Hehir
The first Holocaust movie that's actually about another Holocaust movie, and in some peculiar way it brings us closer to the terror and tragedy of the original event.
90
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Remarkable as much for its speculative restraint as for its philosophical reach.
90
Village Voice by Ella Taylor
The artificial look of the added footage, counterpointed by the commentary of inmates and survivors, only underscores the unending shock of the film's unadulterated images, even though we have seen them in other Shoah documentaries.
90
Variety by Todd McCarthy
It stands as a unique film-within-a-film, of significance for the historical value of the raw images, the memories they spur and internal evidence of how the Nazis staged scenes long assumed to be real.
90
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
It becomes a meditation on the dual nature of film, on a "reality" at once true and false, essential and tainted.
90
Arizona Republic by Bill Goodykoontz
To say that the film is uncomfortable to watch is an understatement. It's searing. Yet it's also invaluable.
90
Movieline by Michelle Orange
The imperatives of history are manifold, and this film is among the most urgent of them. You cannot look, and you must look: This happened. They were human beings. All of them.
88
New York Post by Lou Lumenick
Extremely unsettling and thought- provoking.
80
Time Out by Keith Uhlich
It will test your faith in humanity, but Hersonski's film is nonetheless a brilliant reminder of the importance of bearing witness.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Hersonski enriches this evidence by bringing in survivors of the ghetto, who tell stories of life there while watching the film themselves.
75
The A.V. Club by Noel Murray
A Film Unfinished is affecting as a rare document of a terrible place and time, and those who lived there.
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