Sobibor

In October 1943 there was an uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp, one of the few in a Nazi camp to succeed at all. The man who organised it was a Soviet officer, Alexander Pechersky, and the plan was to kill guards one at a time, quietly, and force a mass escape. Konstantin Khabenskiy both directs and plays Pechersky, pitching the film somewhere between agitation and realism. The passages showing the daily operation of the camp are more effective than the revolt itself. It was Russia's submission for the foreign language Oscar that year. The violence is explicit and at times heavily stylised, which is where most of the criticism landed. Who it is for: viewers interested in Second World War resistance and in the less familiar camp revolts. Who it is not for: anyone who needs distance from directly depicted genocidal violence.