When I watched this movie I was lucky to receive some background information before the movie and a critical analysis afterwards. Without it I probably wouldn't have given it a 7 rating.

It is an extremely slow movie, probably around 40 shots, without a narrative and filmed in black and white. The viewer gets confronted with images of visitors of the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Most of the shots last a couple of minutes. There is no narrator, only the sound of the people and an occasional explanation of a guide. For me, this was a very difficult experience. The movie itself is a critique on the way we visit these sensitive places. Throughout the picture we can hear a guide who tells about Johann Elser, who attempted to kill Hitler but failed and was brought to the Dachau concentration camp where he was tortured and killed. During this explanation we see people who genuinely care about what the guide has to tell. On the other hand, we can also see a girl who tries to hold a water bottle on her head. Each of the shots in this movie has this kind of duality in it.The material was carefully picked by Loznitsa to prove his views about these practices.

If you can make it to the end of the movie - when I watched it a lot of the people in the cinema walked out before it was over- you will have been confronted with Loznitsa his feelings about visiting these concentration camps. These are places where we remember the horror that happened there. But at the same time it is a good example of how capitalism and innovation affects our lives. Dozens of people with smartphones, cameras, branded shirts, food, etc. will have passed on the screen.

It is an interesting experience, and it makes you think about the way these places are being visited.

Five-minute shot of people milling about, doing nothing in particular except walking and looking around. Cut to another 5-minute shot of people milling about, doing nothing interesting in particular. A teenager is wearing a T-shirt with an irreverent expression on it, but not that irreverent. The host waxed philosophical about that T-shirt at the cinema before the movie began, unintentionally setting the stage for artistic pretension. Cut to another 5-minute shot of the entrance to the concentration camp memorial site. Some are taking photos of the Arbeit macht frei sign, but so what. Cut to another 5-minute shot...get the idea yet? I got up and left. Walking out set me free.

Sharing the name of a novel where a character (Austerlitz) sees his mother in a Nazi propaganda film about the Theresienstadt camp where this documentary is set, the film painfully and disturbingly observes tourists walk around the camp for 90 minutes like the character Austerlitz did. When the camera is fixed for at least 5 minutes at a time in different spots around the camp, you notice how the tourists behave as they look around, chat, and take selfies. They don't act disrespectfully, just normally like they were at a theme park or whatever, making you question how they should behave in a Nazi prison camp. Indeed, interesting thoughts arose as I watched this film. Though, the film is precisely that, 90 minutes of fixed shots around a Nazi camp with no additional dialogue. It was (apart from its praises) painful to sit through at times. I don't expect anyone to walk out and think it was a great cinematic achievement or entertaining but perhaps they acknowledge its message that could be read in many ways.