Shoah: Four Sisters

Name: Shoah: Four Sisters
Genre: History, Documentary
Released: November 14, 2018
Duration: 273 min
Rating: 93
Cast: Ada Lichtman, Claude Lanzmann, Hanna Marton, Paula Biren, Ruth Elias

2018

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Universal acclaim based on 7 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Cohen Media Group | Release Date: November 14, 2018 | Not Rated

Starring: Ada Lichtman, Claude Lanzmann, Hanna Marton, Paula Biren, Ruth Elias

Summary: Starting in 1999, Claude Lanzmann made several films that could be considered satellites of Shoah, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. In the last years of the late director’s life, he decided to devote a film to four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with fourStarting in 1999, Claude Lanzmann made several films that could be considered satellites of Shoah, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. In the last years of the late director’s life, he decided to devote a film to four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself improbably alive after war’s end: Ruth Elias from Ostravia, Czechoslovakia; Paula Biren from Lodz, Poland; Ada Lichtman from further south in Krakow; and Hannah Marton from Cluj, or Kolozsvár, in Transylvania. Survivors of unimaginable Nazi horrors during the Holocaust, they tell their individual stories and become crucial witnesses to the barbarism they experienced. Each possesses a vivid intelligence and a commitment to candor that make their accounts of what they suffered through both searing and unforgettable. Four Sisters now arrives on the screen to remind audiences of the immense courage it took for these witnesses to return to their past as they share their deeply moving personal tragedies. The frankness of their words, their intensely scrutinized faces, and their bravery as they revisit unimaginable experiences will make them lasting presences in the moral universe of younger generations. [Cohen Media Group]… Expand

Director: Claude Lanzmann

Genre(s): History, Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 273 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Pat Brown

Nov 12, 2018

By uniting these four interviews in particular, Claude Lanzmann emphasizes the impossibility of moral clarity in the unthinkable circumstances into which Germany’s invasion of Eastern Europe threw its Jewish population. Read full review

100

Ben Kenigsberg

Nov 14, 2018

Their stories are as harrowing, complicated and rife with imponderables as any Lanzmann filmed. And together, collected in a form that is much less labyrinthine than “Shoah,” they represent an ideal introduction (and capstone) to Lanzmann’s project. Read full review

100

RogerEbert.com Matt Zoller Seitz

Nov 14, 2018

The women are all compelling though never too-polished storytellers. Whether they succumb to the horror of what they're describing and start to cry or remain stoic throughout becomes part of the experience of hearing the tale. Read full review

Dave White

Nov 14, 2018

The approximately 270-minute running time becomes a hushed demand for the viewer to sit with historical cruelty and listen as its victims teach to the future, its effect a cumulative cry of warning for today. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Nov 20, 2018

These four, like so many others, opened up to Claude Lanzmann, and the results speak eloquently for themselves. Read full review

Simi Horwitz

Nov 20, 2018

Their most potent commentary is often their silence, their wordless responses to those questions that are unanswerable. Their restraint and dignity are an emotional sucker punch. Read full review

Lawrence Garcia

Nov 13, 2018

Perhaps Four Sisters is best considered a parting gesture from Lanzmann, ensuring that, in his body of work at least, these four “sisters” should endure as more than just a footnote. Read full review

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