From Where They Stood

The movie, in its slightly academic way, is a meditation that heightens our perception.

We can, thanks to movies like this one, continue to bear witness. But we will never truly know the reality he tries so hard to unearth, and that remains our burden to hold.

Cognet’s forensic approach [insists] on memorializing these events in an important, physically specific way and, intentionally or not, queasily anticipates a world without any living eyewitnesses to these horrors.

[The director] puts us in the shoes of those who were caged in these complexes, and connects us to that period far more effectively than we could be by faded images and grim statistics in a superficial sketch found in a high school history textbook.

From Where We Stood is among the most pretentious and pointless documentaries I have ever seen, and this isn’t a designation I put upon the movie lightly.

"From Where They Stood" makes a game attempt to grapple with the full weight of history that bears down on the most deceptively serene vistas.

Haunting, provocative and gently moving. A vital and eye-opening glimpse of the horrors of the Holocaust

As for the director's participation in the stories of these pictures, it's sometimes too minimal, often too much of a distraction, and generally approached without a clear method...

A terrific use of archival photographs to learn more about the horrible conditions in concentration camps but also a very different use of the documentary medium to tell such a story.