Landscapes of Memory

Preceded by “The Grandfather Puzzle”

ERIC SAYS Seldom does a film speak to our moment as resoundingly as Landscapes of Memory, a Holocaust documentary with a difference. While this film is full of resonant images, one central moment encapsulates many of its concerns: the filmmaker, an American descendant of Holocaust survivors who travels to Germany to research their memory, finds herself under arrest by German police—on grounds of anti-semitism for showing solidarity with Palestine. This Orwellian predicament unlocks a timely, important question that the film explores richly from multiple perspectives: has memorial culture been co-opted and weaponized in a way that silences debate and allows for—or even causes—new harm?

As the filmmaker navigates her situation in Germany, another heavy personal crisis unfolds in the States: her father has been diagnosed with ALS, and with each visit home his health visibly deteriorates. And yet, even as he loses his ability to speak, he finds ways to engage with his daughter’s search for truth with raw honesty and even humor, looking together for answers to big questions both personal and political. This is a film that passionately makes the case that the words “never again” need always be applied to all—and evoked in the service of human lives rather than of nationalist rhetoric.