Does art lose its language in the face of the horror it beholds? The piles of corpses were like a symphony of shades of gray, spectacular to behold. So says one of the artists who survived the Nazi concentration camps. One of those who recorded what happened before their eyes and whose testimonies are collected in words, writing and, above all, images in Because I was a Painter (Parce que j'étais Peintre) by Christophe Cognet.
It is difficult terrain that the filmmaker, who was born in Marseille in 1966 and specialized in essay films on the subject of memory work and the creative process after studying at the Sorbonne, explores here. Ultimately, the works shown, which are as much historical documents as works of art, raise questions about the validity of aesthetic criteria in the face of the Holocaust. At the same time, they demonstrate an unwavering human will to survive, which opposes dehumanization and extermination and takes concrete form in the artistic act. In view of the complexity of the subject, the form chosen by Cognet - a montage of pictures and drawings, interviews with artists and archivists, footage of present-day concentration camp memorials - is pleasantly unagitated and allows the viewer the freedom to think.
