I only had nothingness: a fascinating dive into the Shoah by Lanzmann (review)

This documentary unearths previously unpublished archives of the making of this essential masterpiece, which is celebrating its fortieth anniversary. It sheds light on an extraordinary creative process.

Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, released in French cinemas in April 1985, is therefore forty years old. A monster work in terms of its duration (9.5 hours), a world-work in terms of its universal scope. This film bears witness to the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War without recourse to the archive.

In forty years, the very feature film could itself have become an archive if it had not invented its own space-time becoming a block impossible to break up under penalty of being swallowed by the building. Shoah was created from nothing. The traces of evil had disappeared. They had to be revealed. Faces, landscapes, words, and the movement of a camera which captures a form of eternity. A void has been filled. “The question is what you can save with your film! » said a witness.

This documentary by Guillaume Ribot, strong and enlightening, reflects the intellectual, physical and cinematographic dynamics which made it possible to produce this great work… The central place occupied here by Lanzmann, right down to the “I” of the title, translates the power of a gesture which includes him entirely. There are eyes that have seen and those that try to see through them. It’s all just archives. They form a quite astonishing making-of.

As proof, these hidden camera sequences where the filmmaker and his teams seek to deceive former executioners. There are also hugs, hands placed on top of each other and… Claude Lanzmann at the wheel of a car en route to his goal stopped dead by steles.

By Guillaume Ribot. Duration: 1h 34. Released November 26, 2025