Why would a young man wake up and put on a shirt that says “Cool Story, Bro” before heading out for a day trip to Austerlitz? What happens when a historic site of unimaginable suffering becomes a pit stop for family vacationers? This ingeniously simple, mesmerizing documentary—a vital entry in the growing chapter of cinema evaluating the Holocaust’s present-day legacy—arrests and unsettles us from its opening images. Capturing a typical day at the site of a concentration camp turned tourist attraction, we watch throngs of tourists pour into the gates, pausing briefly to snap a shot. Some pose, laughing and smiling alongside signs. Sergei Loznitsa’s camera simply observes these scenes in stark black-and-white, and it becomes increasingly clear just how little connection many of the daytrippers feel to the atrocities they’re looking in on, viewing sites of unconscionable human suffering with only a cursory interest in, or understanding of, the history on which they tread.

SPONSORED BY
Gary Boren (Wed)
Smith Family (Thu)
Valerie M. Angers (Fri)