Doorgeven aan betreffende

Director BarBara Hanlo's uncle was a bird-watcher, a boy scout and a resistance fighter, who died in concentration camp Neuengamme in World War II. Hanlo made a stylised documentary about the subject. She brings back memories, talking to the remaining brother and sisters, including her mother, but largely keeps their faces off the screen. She zooms in on images, like archive films, photographs and notebooks containing bird-watcher's entries, and her lens explores official documents from those days in close-up. In the process, she guides the spectator's eye, which suddenly perceives her uncle's name among those of anonymous partners in misfortune. In a voice-over, she reads from letters her uncle wrote from the camp and from diaries of his deeply religious parents. Using jerky, abstract shots, like slow-motion images shot from a car, and fragments of ominous music, she creates a meditative atmosphere of reflection.