The Dead Nation

With echoes of Chris Marker, Susan Sontag, and W.G. Sebald, Radu Jude’s The Dead Nation consists entirely of photographs from Romanian photographer Costica Acsinte and audio of diary excerpts from Jewish doctor Emil Dorian, which both span the period from 1937 to 1944. A study in contrasts, The Dead Nation presents idyllic images of pastoral life, while Dorian’s diary excerpts portray a surging wave of anti-Semitism and brutality. How do our memories hide the truth of our actions, or lack thereof? How can we measure our individual experiences against the enormity of historical experience? How do we make sense of what we have not—and cannot—witness? Radu Jude’s (Aferim!) hauntingly relevant documentary is, in the words of its narrator, “torn between reality and poetry.”