Three Minutes: A Lengthening is composed entirely of fragments of amateur 16mm film shot by David Kurtz on a brief visit to his birthplace, the small Jewish town of Nasielsk, Poland. The year was 1938.
Mr. Kurtz likely intended to capture only “place” to show to family and friends back home. But the mere presence of the American businessman and his camera would change what came into his viewfinder.
Bemused and wary, the town’s residents poured into the streets. Kids swarmed, determined to get into the shot. Over sixty-nine minutes we catch only fleeting glimpses of young and old, religious and secular, shopkeepers and artisans, housewives and laborers, kids playing hooky from school, But as images repeat—probed, re-arranged, sharpened by new technologies, we get a feel for everyday life.
In one shot people descend the steps of a synagogue. In another we’re inside a restaurant or café. In others kids are leaping and mugging in front of the lens. Nothing is unusual. But the tension we feel is palpable because we know what these people do not. Wiithin a few short years, virtually everyone we see will be murdered. Of the life before us, nothing will be left.
This thoughtful but unflinching visual narrative leads us on a forensic journey that shapes the unfathomable. We get to know a little about the people of Nasielsk, but we can never know enough. More than a documentary about the Holocaust, THREE MINUTES becomes a meditation on the power and limitations of film, and the meaning of memory when there is no one left to recall.
Co-produced by Steve McQueen, with narration by Academy Award nominee Helena Bonham Carter. Based on the book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film by Glenn Kurtz. Read the review in the New York Times.
