'Shoah'

Aesthetically, Shoah is a bit of a misnomer. It seems like a peaceful, comforting Hebrew word. Like it would mean "blanket" or "soft."

Instead, it translates to "catastrophe" and is the word used for Holocaust.

Generally, people feel the Holocaust should never be forgotten. I remember a literature class in college and some nitwit girl said she didn't want to talk about the Holocaust because it "depressed" her. At that moment, I thought all I could possibly do is keep talking about it. Never letting the subject go.

The truth of the matter is that Schindler's List and The Pianist may be some of the least worthwhile films about Shoah in history. Especially compared to the sprawling epics of Claude Lanzmann, a French filmmaker and professor, who directed Shoah and who I thought directed The Sorrow and the Pity, but he didn't.

Lanzmann was a Jewish Frenchman and upon occupation went into hiding. At age 18, he joined the French Resistance.

Shoah is a nine-hour documentary, one of the foremost and comprehensive works documenting the Holocaust. He talked to survivors, Nazis and witnesses of the atrocities at Chelmo, the death camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the Warsaw Ghetto.

The interviews are tremendous. The film itself needs chapters or some sort of organization. It seems to jump from one theme to another. There's no narrative direction or control. It's sort of thrown together. If there's nine hours of film, then there had to be 36 hours -- at least -- of footage.

Footage of SS officer Franz Suchomel -- I guess with hidden camera -- showing the details and intricacies of a gas chamber chills to the bone.

Interviews with "bystanders" tend to frustrate the most. At best, we knew Suchomel's intentions and prejudices. The witnesses carry on like nothing happen. At times, they seem aloof. They avoid questions, change the subject or answer one way and then contradict themselves in the next breath. Rarely do you get a straight answer and you are forced to assume that what they saw was stupefying and they did about it was equally disgusting.

It's a crazy watch and I highly encourage everyone to take on the film. Lanzmann asks the tough questions for all of us and tries to hold as many people as possible responsible for Shoah, the catastrophe.