Because I Was a Painter

As crude as many of these works are, they exert an eerie cumulative power.

Cognet's work is more devoted to thought about aesthetics than aesthetics themselves. His modest film represents a break from the rigorous historical work typically associated with documentaries about the Holocaust, and its open-ended nature is a fitting analogue to ongoing questions about testimony and healing.

A less successful aspect of the film is Cognet’s attempt to tie the concentration camps as contemporary spaces into the narrative, with shots of the now practically empty landscapes -- some tourists here and there notwithstanding -- interspersed throughout.

More attention paid to the narrative of some of these pieces, rather than simply their craft, could have been more enlightening.