Austerlitz

On a summer day, tourists walk around a former concentration camp. They wear shorts, eat ice cream, listen to the guide, have their photographs taken under the sign at the gate. The film shows nothing else. It is not interested in the history of the camp. It is interested in the visit: Sergei Loznitsa fixes the camera and watches how people behave, and passes no judgement. The viewer is made uncomfortable, and nowhere in the film is there a sentence saying so. The form is entirely observational: black and white, long static shots, no narrator, no music. All we hear is the sound of the crowd and guides speaking in different languages. It was shot at Sachsenhausen and Dachau. The title comes from W.G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz. Loznitsa went on making archive and observational documentaries by this method; The Event and The Trial are in the same line. Who it is for: viewers who like observational documentary and want to think about the culture of remembrance. Who it is not for: anyone expecting guidance. The film explains nothing, shows the same thing for eighty minutes, and will feel repetitive to some.