Images of the World and the Inscription of the War

This remarkable film applies a rigorous investigative intelligence to one of the 20th century's darkest moments by closely examining the 1944 Allied aerial photographs of German chemical factory Farben, which revealed evidence of the genocide unfolding at nearby Auschwitz. Issues around the selective perception of reality and the persistence of what is erased via pictorial residues are explored in a systematic collage of image 'technologies', from Identikits through architectural models and make-up to draughtsmanship. The shifting political and psychological implications of the image's artifice/authenticity are probed, but crucial is the twin realisation that while events can be changed and even redeemed by looking properly, there always remains a classification and reduction of the world and experience in the process. A significant and compelling work of forensic exposure.