#important documentaries

[harrison-abbott]

I used to visit Poland a lot when I was younger. It’s the country that I’ve spent the most time in in terms of foreign land (as somebody from Scotland), and I would go around the big cities. But I also visited the countryside a lot, too.

And what I felt about the Polish country especially was a sense of great beauty. Polska is a very beautiful land, with the fields and the forest. There is a dense, rich quality to this nation’s wilderness. And whilst I was watching Shoah (1985) I was reminded of all of that beauty – for a lot of it is shot in the same terrain that I mention.

This is what makes it a highly unusual documentary. Because there is no archival footage whatsoever used to portray the time period in question. What we see instead are scenes of 1980s, beautiful Poland.

Accompanying this visual array, are the interviews and words with real people who were involved with the events that happened forty years earlier. We witness a whole range of people speak about their experiences. And their stories clash and mix with the scenery.

I actually posted on this blog yesterday about H.G. Wells’ book, A Short History of the World. And I was struck by just how much violence was involved in the history between peoples, throughout the ages. It was as if violent behaviour was the key motivator behind what propelled most of the chapters. This group of people invaded another group of people in this other part of the continent, and won over this area of land, for x amount of time, until a new army invaded, and they ruled for y number of years.

And whilst I was reading this book, the violence was somehow diluted because it was so repetitive.

When I watched this documentary ^, the horrors involved were far more subjectively portrayed. Not that I’m saying that the horror in the Wells book was to be ignored. Only that, in this film, the accounts were actual people who were direct witnesses to what happened.

I’m sure we know lots of black comic jokes that are made about this particular topic. People make jokes about this genocide, in crass terms. Be it in cartoons, or in the playground, or just for a sick ‘sense of humour’. It is as if what happened during WWII has ended up as a soup of jargon, in a way, whereby words and phrases such as; holocaust, Auschwitz, concentration camp, gas chambers, Hitler, Nazi: all of these items seem to gloss over the sheer scale of the atrocity.

I remember being in college (FE college, not university) and overhearing a lad talking about his visit he made to Auschwitz with his friends. And he was telling them about “shower jokes” he had made whilst there. And the other folk who were listening were just laughing at them. And I remember reading a novel by a Hungarian writer who repeatedly made black digs about the Jews being sent off to be gassed.

What on earth is funny about what happened?

Often, I marvel at how short a time ago it was. It really wasn’t that long ago. Eighty years ago, as I write this on the 17th March 2024, it was still happening. My own grandfather was a British serviceman in the Royal Engineers, and he was rescued from Dunkirk. And then he went back to Europe and ended up in Berlin after the war ended, where he was a prison guard. Albert Speer was one of the detainees in the prison he guarded.

And I am 31 years old now, and my grandfather was only two generations above me. This is how recent World War Two is in historical terms.

As for a film, it is very good. It is nine and half hours long, so it takes a while. And many of the stories included are so grim that I had to pause for a while and do other things, just because the content got so oppressive. But in the way that is shot, and the manner in which the information is delivered, is somehow magnetic. Or, rather, you feel that you are watching something that is important to watch. Which, I believe, is what films are supposed to do.

Not everything was pretty, in a visual sense, throughout this film.

This was not the point I was trying to make earlier. What I meant was that, there are many areas of Poland where the old camps were demolished and now they are surrounded by green, fertile land. Particularly with Treblinka: it just seems like a lost place in the sticks, and you wouldn’t think anything awful had gone down there if it weren’t for the cemeteries.

But with Auschwitz, it has remained intact. That famous shot of the train track, with the entrance on the horizon. The ominous tower above the entrance … it just looks like something out of Hell.

I think it is profoundly important that they kept Auschwitz preserved. In the same way that it was essential for Claude Lanzmann to have made this epic film.

There are many scenes whereby he interviews, via his translator, the Polish people who remember the Jewish folks before they were taken off to the camps. And the lady translator speaks back to him in French what they said. Lanzmann also speaks in English and German to various other people who were involved. And there is Hebrew at points as well, and Greek. And with this collage of languages, one gets a sense of the magnitude of the whole ordeal. It makes you incredulous how mammoth this massacre was. And stuns you to think that it ever possibly happened.

I won’t go into details about a particular part in the doc: but there was a note of disbelief amongst the victims as well. Or, rather, disbelief before they became victims. They couldn’t believe that they would be murdered in such a way, on a mass scale. And it happened across a whole continent.

This is not an easy documentary to watch. But, it makes you think, and it’s worth experiencing. I certainly rate it highly amongst the many documentaries I’ve seen. And it is a huge achievement from Lanzmann and the rest of his team.

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

I urge you to watch the Tantura documentaries. There are also plenty of other sources you can find with little research.

This is what zionists will not show you. Their soldiers take pride in what they've done. This is why whenever you argue with a zionist they will not talk about anything prior to Oct 7 and will keep pulling you in circles, even they can't find a way to justify this.

The man he's talking about was an armless civilian, he killed him bc he "liked" his belt. Don't be fooled by the way he calls him a terrorist. You can't kill someone and then call them a terrorist to escape consequences.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸

[midnight-ramblingswfc]

An Arsenal legend, Jordan Nobbs

[love4hobi]

It feels like a dream, to be honest. It’s been two days. Yesterday, I couldn’t believe that it actually happened. It didn’t feel real at all. But when I woke up this morning, my body ached all over. That’s when I realized that I really gave it my all. I finally started eating again after the performance. I can finally eat now. I couldn’t believe it.

j-hope In The Box (2023)

[panimoonchild]

Russian methods are still the same

Anyone who is in Cambridge I highly recommend you to visit the place where you can witness evidence of one of the many Russian crimes.

80 years later same scenario. Russians are happy and feel bliss in their impunity. Russians think they are better than the indigenous people, the Mariupol people. They want to live in bloody destroyed buildings where our people are buried. Russians are non-humans. They've done and keep doing the worst crimes for humanity because they never paid for it.

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen, 2022)    

[thepavementsings]

[deemacs]

regarding oceangate, i do want them to survive a little bit just for them to absolutely sue the shit out of the owner, i want the greedy people to fight to death on my tv screen, telling us about the horrors they had to endure, finally doing something for the public by entertaining us. turning from kings to jesters.

[folklorespring]

"20 Days in Mariupol" (2023) dir. Mstyslav Chernov

[beggars-opera]

Yearly reminder for people learning about Salem that Tituba was Native American. This poor woman has already suffered enough without people getting her race wrong for three hundred years

[aiteanngaelach]

ye should watch this lads, its an absolutely stunning moving documentary about older lgbt people in ireland, its only 18 minutes long, ye should give it a go

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

Palestinian children from the family of Al-Hajj were found under the rubble of their home after being killed in the bombing of the Nsairat refugee camp, Central Gaza. 21.11.23

This is haunting. Remember that there are no resources to dig people up from the rubble. So civilians use their own hands to dig if they could, which in this case is impossible. So even if you're alive crushed under the rubble, there is no way to get you out. And if you manage to get out, there are no functioning hospital in Gaza except for one. Demand a ceasefire, this isn't normal and never will be.

[dixpence]

people need to realize that attacking victims is NEVER okay. harrassing victims for statements is NOT okay. DEATH THREATS are NOT OKAY. drake essentially went through sexual torture at a young age and couldnt get the help he needed for what happened when he needed it. it doesnt make what he did okay, but oftentimes abuse begets more abuse, especially for what these kids went through when they did. no victim OWES anyone anything, not statements, not explanations, not reliving or remembering their trauma just because something finally came to light.

these kids trusted the adults on set and those adults either didnt or couldnt protect them, or ACTIVELY HURT THEM.

no one owes anyone ANYTHING.

[masonjarsmoments]

2024 FIS junior Ski jumping championships be like:

So so sorry for Tate our boy did so great in the Trainings.. also kinda hilarious that once again the Norwegians are cursed give me big flashbacks to I think 16/17when Stökel broke into the room where they do the controls after half of the team got dsq (it was in that hopplandslaget Documentary that was quality content and now is nowhere to be find anymore..)

[mnikhowozu]

maybe someday someone will draw arcade like he’s actually a 35 year old nerd who is too old to be a twink and looks like he’s an evergreen doaner to PBS and listens to NPR

[soupy-sez]

Rumble Fish (1983)