An overlong, but well-told documentary about life in Amsterdam during and after WWII.
I apologize if I’m late with my review of “Occupied City,” but the screener website only gave me a 5-View window, which wouldn’t even let me pick up where I left off, and I only made it as far as 2 hours and 30 minutes. This movie runs for 4 and a half hours.
Here’s the long-awaited review.
I seriously doubt a Holocaust documentary would have Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” playing in the background. I’m also not sure how people sledding down a hill or people partying to techno music is useful to the story. Apparently, the documentary “Occupied City” features those elements, some of the reasons why it runs for less than 5 hours. That’s less than half as long as the 1985 documentary “Shoah,” which ran for 9 and a half hours. I think some editing would have made the film a masterpiece.
If it’s that long, then it should have treated the story with more humanity and less background activities and people. It feels like one of those YouTube videos where people get a tour of a city. In fact, part of this documentary takes place during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the story regarding the Netherlands, which the Nazis occupied during the war is poignant and important enough for viewers to be observed by it. Maybe not in a theater, but rather online or on TV. That way people can watch half now and half later. I was lucky enough to get a second chance to finish it later.
There are shots that are important, like the Amstelbad swimming pool, which the Jews were only allowed to swim in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the war. We do get to see today’s swimmers in the pool, which seems poignant enough to represent one of the sad things about the war.
Among the other short stories the film talks about, there was also a Jewish cemetery, which was full in 1914, but the German turned it into a training ground in 1942. Illegal burials have been performed but not confirmed at this location. This play has been mangled for years, while some tombs were relocated. Only a few remain.
Dam Square is where, in 1945, German soldiers were shooting at people, taking over 30 lives in the process.
And in the German section of Weteringschans Prison, political prisoners and resistance members were detained. And the “Jewish barrack” was a single, filthy cell in the prison yard, and its prisoners were forced to walk around the yard and saying horrible things about themselves. It’s better I don’t tell you here. However, a day after liberation, all of the prisoners were released.
I don’t want to reveal all the stories, so you can be absorbed when you watch this doc online. Or if you already saw it in one of the few art house theaters to screen it.
There’s literally a 15 minute Intermission, in which the timer is in the form of the word slowly being crossed off. Even that was applied to my defective screener link. Another reason why this movie is long, but at least we’re lucky enough to get a theatrical intermission these days.
“Occupied City” was directed by Steve McQueen, who has proven himself to an exceptional filmmaker with the perfect amount of range and grip. And he has Melanie Hyams narrating the film with patience, regarding the life and times of this part of occupied Europe. We don’t need to see off-topic moments, because they become distracting, and the editing needs to cut back on the long shots, but it does tell a true, horrific story with details.
This subject matter is very important, especially when history threatens to repeat itself with racism and hatred. And I think the most important long shot is when we get a wall which features list of deported Jewish people.
Now In Select Theaters and Streaming Online