Austerlitz (2016)

Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa | 94 minutes | documentary

With ‘Austerlitz’, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa holds up a mirror to the viewer. He does this in one of the simplest, but in this case also very appropriate ways ever. He places a camera in different places and lets us ‘people watch’, a favorite activity of almost everyone. Nicely smug behind your glass of cola or beer commenting on others. “What an ugly tattoo!” “Look at that one, it’s fat! Then you wouldn’t wear a dress like that, would you?” No, people watching doesn’t often bring out the best in people.

But unlike when you sit on a sun-drenched terrace, watching ‘Austerlitz’ confronts you with your own prejudices. Because the people you watch are – something you don’t know if you haven’t read up on the film beforehand, but who wouldn’t mind these days? – visitors to one of Germany’s former concentration camps now open to visitors: Dachau, 20 kilometers from Munich, and Sachsenhausen, which is easily accessible from Berlin. The undersigned was in Sachsenhausen in 2002, on a cloudy day, completely opposite to the weather conditions under which Loznitsa filmed, but that cannot be the only reason for the large difference in crowds. Wasn’t it such a tourist attraction then? Apparently not.

However, that’s not what ‘Austerlitz’ is about. In this documentary you see throngs of people strolling like tourists through the barracks, across the grounds and past gas chambers and incinerators, where the memories of atrocities from history still hang like a heavy blanket. And that’s what ‘Austerlitz’ is all about. Can you watch this in tourist mode? With your shorts, sunglasses and sun hat on, as if you just came from the beach? But on the other hand, does it matter how you dress when you visit a concentration camp? Does wearing a t-shirt with ironic lyrics mean you have no feelings for this place? After all, your presence here implies that you have taken the trouble to visit the camp and that you want to immerse yourself in it (not counting the bored faces that appear from the crowd). And every now and then you see faces that are really affected by the emotions and that gives satisfaction in a crazy way.

Due to the absence of commentary, the filmmaker refrains from passing judgment on the visitors as a group, but in this way offers the viewer plenty of space to let their thoughts run wild. And that works. Well done.