THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW – Review by Leslie Combemale
Once you hear The Commandant’s Shadow is the perfect companion to The Zone of Interest, you think, “oh. ok. I can do this.” You prepare yourself. No matter how much you do, this documentary has such a powerful hold, it’s hard to shake even days later.
Documentarian Daniela Völker’s film follows Hans Höss, the son of Rudolf Höss, who was not only the commandant of Auschwitz, but one of the architects of its design, especially as it related to the extermination of prisoners there. A man who had a personal hand in killing over a million Jews, it was his life that was fictionalized in The Zone of Interest. While young son, Hans, played in his back yard, blissfully unaware of what was happening over the wall mere feet away, one prisoner, young cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was playing for her life. She was part of the orchestra that serenaded victims and Nazi soldiers alike, while selection of who would live and who would be sent directly to the gas chambers was being done.
The Commandant’s Shadow examines the perspectives, remembered experiences, and feelings of Hans Höss and his son, preacher Kai Höss, as well as Lasker-Wallfisch and her daughter, therapist Maya Lasker-Wallfisch. Through their interviews with the filmmaker, viewers discover how indelible or subjective memory can be. These interviews also show how much guilt, sadness and confusion can plague the child of someone whose whole family is murdered, or whose father or grandfather is the biggest mass murdered in history. Later in the film, which has a very well-structured arc, as all good documentaries should, we witness the meeting of father and son Höss and mother and daughter Lasker-Wallfisch. It is a gathering replete with grace and forgiveness, especially after viewers watch Hans Höss’s shift from one son’s tenacious denial to an old man’s acceptance that at least part of his father was a murderous monster.
It’s one thing to see a narrative like The Zone of Interest, which may be a great feature film, but is also a very tough watch. It’s another thing altogether to witness the son of the commandant of Auschwitz meet a woman who survived the death camp by performing music while thousands were herded to their death. It sounds horrid, and of course it is, but it’s also so incredibly moving and real, it must be seen. WE must be witnesses, especially in the current climate. The expression “never forget” has never been more apt, and these people, who actively engage each other in talking about one of the most monstrous actions ever done to human beings, is transformational.
4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
