Triumph Over Violence

Mikhail Romm's 1965 documentary assembles archive material out of Nazi Germany: propaganda films, newsreels and captured amateur footage. What Romm does is not to arrange the images but to set them against his own narration, frequently ironic and sometimes openly mocking, in order to show how fascism settled into the daily life of ordinary people. Its original title is Ordinary Fascism, which describes the subject exactly. It was made during the post-Stalin thaw, and turning the enemy's own images into a critique of totalitarianism invited readings in which the same critique reached the Soviet system, which delayed its release for a period. It took the grand prize at Leipzig. Who it's for: viewers seeking montage documentary and work that examines the social machinery of fascism. Who it's not for: anyone approaching camp and atrocity footage unprepared; the material is very heavy.