Diamonds of the Night

For his first feature Jan Němec collaborated with the classic Czech writer Arnošt Lustig, adapting his autobiographical story Darkness Casts No Shadow. Two Jewish teenagers escape the train that is taking them to a concentration camp – only to be persecuted and hunted by a group of old Germans, whose bloody job is just a mechanical routine defined by Hannah Arendt as "the banality of evil".
The film's austerity and expressionism recall Bresson's A Man Escaped that indeed partly inspired Němec. However, Diamonds of the Night is a distinct masterpiece in its own right. It's also one of the most fascinating film debuts ever. Its subjective and at the same time observational camera, elliptic editing, minimalist sound as well as both narrative and non-narrative compositions free the film from the canons of realism and turn it into a visceral sensory experience. Pure visionary cinema that never distinguishes between dreams and shadows.

Screened in combination with A Loaf of Bread and Arnošt Lustig Through the Eyes of Jan Němec.