The Tattooist of Auschwitz on M6: a shock to History (review)

The Tattooist of Auschwitz on M6: a shock to History (review)

A beautiful drama, inspired by the real life of Lali Sokolov, which recalls the horror of a memory which tragically tends to fade, year after year.

Soon it will be a century. Almost a century since humanity discovered the horrors of Nazism. This week marks 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, the moment when the world became aware of the reality of the final solution. And if this chilling memory tends inexorably to fade over time, series like The Tattooist of Auschwitz are a good way to maintain the duty of memory.

A few years ago, the novelist Heather Morris crossed the path of Lali Sokolov. He told her he was a survivor of the infamous Polish death camp. He was a prisoner there, converted into a tattoo artist, trying to survive in this hell on Earth. But deep in this abyss of suffering, he met his wife, Gita. Between them, despite morbid conditions, a true love story was born.

The Israeli director, Tali Shalom-Ezerthus films love at first sight in Auschwitz, in an uneven fiction, which dares the love story in the camps, injecting along the way a multitude of themes ranging from passion to the feeling of guilt, including the trauma impossible to overcome. A slew of emotions that the series sometimes struggles to convey. Fortunately, the romantic tragedy carries its own weight thanks to the stunning performances of‘Anna Próchniak and of Jonah Hauer-King, which passes admirably from Prince Eric of The Little Mermaid (the recent live version) to the deportee of Auschwitz.

We could also have done without the back and forth with the present, where the scenes “of our days”, between Harvey Keitel And Melanie Lynskeyburden the story with a pathos that is more trying than poignant.

Especially since the interest of Auschwitz tattoo artist is essentially based on the appalling portrayal of the camp. The reconstruction is precise, but above all it is very lively. Abandoning the documentary aspect, it fully embraces its prison series side, to better anchor the story, and tell the daily life of prisoners. The untimely assassinations, the summary executions, the cruelty of the Nazi guards, the struggle to survive certain death, which lurks in every corner of the barracks. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is unbearably violent, as when we see these naked women herded like animals before being taken to the gas chambers. There is reason to be shocked, obviously. And that is the honorable aim of such fiction. Without having the pretension of describing reality in detail – it is an adaptation of a work of fiction based on the memory of an experience, told decades later – and by assuming its part of narration, the series succeeds to convey the truth of unspeakable horror, and at the same time this essential message: look how far humanity has already gone, to always avoid going back there.

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