The Last Stage

Wanda Jakubowska's 1948 Polish film follows a Jewish woman brought to Auschwitz with her family who is given the role of interpreter in the camp. The role gives her relative room to move; the same does not hold for the people she loves. What distinguishes the film is the conditions of its making. Jakubowska survived Auschwitz and shot the film on the grounds of the camp itself in 1947, co-writing the script with another former prisoner. Some of the extras were survivors. It is regarded as the first narrative film about the camp and largely set the visual language of later Holocaust cinema. The narrative carries the political frame of its period in places; there are passages where the emphasis on resistance runs ahead of the historical record. Who it's for: those interested in the history of Holocaust cinema and postwar Eastern European film. Who it's not for: viewers unprepared for the subject; the film shows camp conditions directly.