Alain Resnais’s documentary on the history of Nazi Germany’s death camps has garnered polarizing views from its viewers on its use of archival and present day footage. However, unlike many documentary films, we cannot “document” this particular reality. According to Resnais’ and Cayrol we can only “reflect, ask questions, examine this extremely unpleasant history, and formulate our own responses.” By choosing to compress such enormous subject matter into only a half an hour short film (looked at in comparison to Claude Lanzmann’s over nine hour long film Shoah, 1985), the filmmakers force themselves into a sort of essayistic reflective film style. Furthermore, with the help of Didi-Humbermans article, Montage-Image or Lie Image, we learn how montage filmmaking is a vital aspect in aiding viewer’s understanding of the history in context of the film.…show more content… With the mixed use of color photography from the present, and black and white footage from the past, this effort at analysis and reflection is one of the ways in which we see the filmmakers work to evade religious sadness. However, aside from the use of some black and white stills that are absolutely horrific, there is no real attempt to recapture such horror in the present-day footage of the camps. Didi-Humberman claims in his article that “montages are more valuable when they aid the viewers understanding of the history that the story concerns.” In other words, montages are only valuable when they do not attempt to close portions of the film. If this is the case, I disagree with Huberman’s view because I believe montages, especially in Hollywood style films, are successful in their attempt to condense and conclude a time-period of events to make the film more concise to its