Adolf Eichman - The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal

This jaw-dropping documentary takes an experimental approach in its presentation of footage from the 1961 trial of SS colonel Adolf Eichman, a German efficiency "specialist" in charge of transportation of Jews to concentration camps during World War II. After Israeli agents finally caught up with Eichman in South America in 1960, they deported him to Israel, and American filmmaker Leo Hurwitz captured over 350 hours of footage of the subsequent months-long trial. Presented here in an experimentally edited version by Eyal Silvain and Rony Brauman, the trial becomes a surreal, chilling experience. Their technique contrasts the banality of courtroom procedure with an haunting, avante garde score, and subtle video tricks that hint at the unfathomable atrocities being addressed. This mix of tedium and horror is perfectly reflected by Eichman himself, as he hides in a dull fog of bureaucratic buck-passing throughout the film, while the judge has to continually quiet the hostile courtroom. Touches like the numbered tattoo visible on the arm of a court official operating a tape machine, communicate stronger messages than even actual footage of war atrocities could. Devastating in its simplicity, THE SPECIALIST is a film of great historical importance, and subtle, haunting power.