歷史之瞳：馬歇爾・歐佛斯

While Parisian ‘society’ continues in its usual spin of theatre, opera, horse racing and carefully choreographed love affairs under Nazi occupation, the sleepy town of Clermont-Ferrand welcomes their new-found German rulers with open arms. In the midst of all this, thousands of socialist-minded workers, gypsies and refugees are witch-hunted, imprisoned and then transported to concentration camps and eventual death.

This is an idiosyncratic work from a master of his craft, combining his customary cynicism with biting comment as he meticulously investigates his subject matter - this time that world famous edifice of human repression, the Berlin Wall. Spanning November 9 1989 to November 9 1990, this film mixes actual news-footage of the crumbing of the Berlin Wall with post-wall interviews with some of the lead players in the former German Democratic Republic’s political elite, as well as interviews with ordinary East Germans.

On March 16 1968, the US Army’s 11th Light Infantry Brigade under the command of Lt. William Calley, completely destroyed the village My Lai and three hundred individuals were massacred. The GI’s orders to “search and destroy” had been transformed in a twinkling of the eye into the “My Lai Massacre” - never to be erased from history. Director Marcel OPHÜLS returns to that blackest of historical pages in the hope of understanding how the tragedy happened. Through scores of interviews, the ugly and weak side of human nature is gradually laid bare.