This was way too hard to find, and it's honestly a bit frustrating how obscure it is. Even though it's long and emotionally intense, Marcel Ophüls' The Sorrow and the Pity is similarly long and grim, and is fairly well-known/accessible. I feel like The Memory of Justice might be even better than his 1969 documentary, which I felt dragged a little in parts. It's also better than another Ophuls epic documentary, Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, which was admirable for its scope though really challenged my attention span (all three of these would make for an emotionally devastating and exhaustive trilogy). The Memory of Justice is also challenging, in regards to its length, but I feel like it used its mammoth runtime a little better, and it also felt more cutting and more powerful (to me at least).
Maybe it's the fact that it's critical of America that makes it controversial and kind of under the radar. It's about the complexity of justice and how the victor in a conflict often simplifies justice, and can come across as hypocritical in the process. It does this by linking the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany to those committed by others (mainly the U. S.) post World War II. It does this carefully, though, and I feel like you can compare the two without saying they're the same. And by no means is it sympathetic to the wrongdoings of Germany in WWII and the people who were on trial at Nuremberg. It merely points out how bad things were done by people on all sides (even if the severity of those deeds can vary), and how atrocities have been committed post-World War II.
I might be making it sound crass or simplistic, but the runtime allows for plenty of nuance, so I came away from this feeling like it was balanced, intelligent, and always solid at arguing its central premise. As a historical document for conflict in the 20th century, it's great, and for an exploration of the idea of justice, it's also compelling. It was exhausting, and I found some parts more riveting/interesting than others, but I still respect what an immense achievement in documentary filmmaking this is, and I feel like it's one of the better documentaries I've watched in recent memory.
